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WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND NOTES 
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER 



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BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Wan ^\\yzxi\\it pres?, CambnDge 

1892 






Copyright, 1879, 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 

Copyright, 1892, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



a- mi J 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Blectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



The general use which has followed the first publi- 
cation of American Poems confirms the editor in his 
belief that such a book has a real place in our educa- 
tional system, and he is gratified by the wide and cor- 
dial recognition which it has received. The few criti- 
cisms which have been offered seem mainly to have 
sprung from a hasty consideration of its intention. 
It does not profess to be a representative volume of 
American poetry, nor, in a comprehensive way, of the 
poets whose works are included in it, but, because the 
poems are of themselves worthy and the group is 
American in origin and tone, the book has a signifi- 
cance which justifies its title. The brief sketches of 
the authors contained in it were necessarily limited to 
the main facts of their literary life, but the editor, in 
reviewing his work under the more favorable condi- 
tions of a completed book and lapse of time, perceives 
with renewed and stronger feeling how pure and ad- 
mirable is the spirit in which these American poets 
have wrought, how high an ideal has been before them, 
and with what grace and beauty their lives have rein- 
forced their poems ! Surely, the poets have given 



IV PREFACE. 

America no greater gift than their own characters and 
lofty lives. 

Scarcely any attempt at criticism was made of our 
writers in this volume ; in the companion volume of 
American Prose^ where all but one of the poets ap- 
pear again, the opportunity has been taken to call at- 
tention more specifically to the art, as here to the 
biographic details. The two volumes will be found to 
complement each other. 

January^ 1880. 



PREFACE. 



This volume of American Poems has been prepared 
with special reference to the interests of young people, 
both at school and at home. Reading-books and 
popular collections of poetry contain many of the 
shorter and well-known poems of the authors repre- 
sented in this book, but the scope of such collections 
does not generally permit the introduction of the 
longer poems. It is these poems, and, with a slight 
exception, these only, that make up this volume. The 
power to read and enjoy poetry is one of the finest re- 
sults of education, but it cannot be attained by exclu- 
sive attention to short poems ; there is involved in this 
power the capacity for sustained attention, the remain- 
ing with the poet upon a long flight of imagination, 



PREFACE. V 

the exercise of the mind in bolder sweep of thought. 
Moreover, the familiarity with long poems produces 
greater power of appreciation when the shorter ones 
are taken up. It is much to take deep breaths of the 
upper air, to fill the lungs with a good draught of 
poetry, and unless one accompanies the poet in his 
longer reaches, he fails to know what poetry can give 
him. 

In making the selection for this volume a very sim- 
ple principle has been followed. It was desired to 
make the book an agreeable introduction to the pleas- 
ures of poetry, and, by confining it to American poetry 
of the highest order, to give young people in America 
the most natural acquaintance with literature. These 
poets are our interpreters. All but one are still living, 
so that the poetry is contemporaneous and appeals 
through familiar forms ; as far as possible narrative 
poems have been chosen, and, in the arrangement of 
authors, regard has been had to degrees of difficulty, 
the more involved and subtle forms of poetry following 
the simpler and more direct. Throughout, the book 
has been conceived in a spirit which welcomes poetry 
as a noble delight, not as a grammatical exercise or 
elocutionary task. 

With the same intention the critical apparatus has 
been treated in a literary rather than in a pedagogical 
way. The editor has imagined himself reading aloud, 
and stopping now and then to explain a phrase, to 
clear an allusion, or to give a suggestion as to similar 
forms in literature. Since several of the poems are 



VI PRE FA CE. 

semi - historical in character, the historic basis has 
been carefully pointed out, and hints have been given 
for further pursuit of the subjects treated. Words, 
though obsolete or archaic, are not explained when 
the dictionary account is sufficient. A brief sketch 
of the author precedes each section. 

It is strongly hoped that the book will be accepted 
by schools as a contribution to that very important 
work in which teachers are engaged, of giving to their 
pupils an interest in the best literature, a love for pure 
and engaging forms of art. If, with all our drill and 
practice in reading during the years of school-life, chil- 
dren leave their schools with no taste for good reading, 
and no familiarity with those higher forms of litera- 
ture that have grown out of the very life which they 
are living, it must be questioned whether the time 
given to reading has been most wisely employed. 

August, 1879. 



CONTENTS, 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .... 

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie 
The Courtship of Miles Standish 
The Building of the Ship 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

BIO&RAPHICAL SKETCH .... 

Snow-Bound : A Winter Idyl . 

Among the Hills .... 

Mabel Martin .... 

Cobbler Keezar's Vision 

Barclay of Ury 

The Two Rabbis .... 

The Gift of Tritemius 

The Brother of Mercy 

The Prophecy of Samuel Sew all 

Maud Mullbr .... 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

biographical sketch . . . 

Sella 

The Little People of the Snow 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

biographical sketch .... 

Grandmother's Story , 

The School-Boy .... 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH , , , 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 
Under the Willows . 



PAOS 

1 

4 

101 

172 

, 189 
192 
219 
237 

, 250 
257 

, 262 
265 

, 267 
271 

, 277 

283 

. 287 

304 

. 317 

320 

. 332 

347 

. 351 

364 



viii CONTENTS. 

Under the Old Elm 377 

Agassiz 392 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

BIO&RAPHICAL SKETCH 415 

The Adirondacs 418 

The Titmouse 430 

monadnoc 433 

APPENDIX. 

In the Laboratory with Agassiz . . . 449 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, 
Maine, February 27, 1807. He was a classmate of Haw- 
thorne at Bowdoin College, graduating there in the class of 
1825. He began the study of law in the office of his father, 
Hon. Stephen LongfeUow; but receiving shortly the ap- 
pointment of professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, 
he devoted himself after that to literature, and to teaching 
in connection with literature. Before beginning his work 
at Bowdoin he increased his qualifications by travel and 
study in Europe, where he stayed three years. Upon his 
return he gave his lectures on modern languages and litera- 
ture at the college, and wrote occasionally for the North 
American Review and other periodicals. The first volume 
which he published, exclusive of text-books, was Coplas de 
Manrique, a translation of Spanish verse, introduced by an 
Essay on the Moral and Devotional Poetry of Spain. 
This was issued in 1833, but has not been kept in print as 
a separate work. The introduction appears as a chapter 
in Outre-Mer, a reflection of his European life and travel, 
the first of his prose writings. In 1835 he was invited to 
succeed Mr. George Ticknor as professor of modern lan- 
guages and literature at Harvard College, and again went 
to Europe for preparatory study, giving especial attention 
to Germany and the Scandinavian countries. He held 
his professorship until 1854, but continued to live in Cam- 
bridge until his death, March 24, 1882, occupying a house 
known from a former occupant as the Craigie house, and 



2 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

also as Washington's headquarters, that general having so 
used it while organizing the army that held Boston in siege 
at the beginning of the Revolution. Everett, Sparks, and 
Worcester, the lexicographer, at one time or another lived 
in this house, and here Longfellow wrote most of his works. 
In 1839 appeared Hyperion, a Romance, which, with 
more narrative form than Outre-Mer, like that gave the 
results of a poet's entrance into the riches of the Old World 
life. In the same year was published Voices of the Nighty 
a little volume containing chiefly poems and translations 
which had been printed separately in periodicals. The 
Psalm of Life, perhaps the best known of Longfellow's 
short poems, was in this volume, and here too were The 
Beleaguered City and Footsteps of Angels. Ballads and 
other Boems appeared at the close of 1841 and Poems on 
Slavery in 1842 ; The Spanish Student, a play in three acts, 
in 1843 ; The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems in 1846 ; 
Evangeline in 1847 ; Kavanagh, a Tale, in prose, in 1849. 
Besides the various volumes comprising short poems, the list 
of Mr. Longfellow's works includes The Golden Legend, The 
Song of Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, Tales 
of a Wayside Inn, The New England Tragedies, and a 
translation of Dante's Divina Commedia. Mr. Longfellow's 
literary life began in his college days, and he wrote poems 
almost to the day of his death. A classification of his poems 
and longer works would be an interesting task, and would 
help to disclose the wide range of his sympathy and taste ; 
a collection of the metres which he has used would show 
the versatility of his art, and similar studies would lead one 
to discover the many countries and ages to which he went 
for subjects. It would not be difficult to gather from the 
volume of Longfellow's poems hints of personal experience, 
that biography of the heart which is of more worth to us 
than any record, however full, of external change and adven- 
ture. Such hints may be found, for example, in the early 
lines, To the River Charles, which may be compared with 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 

his recent Three Friends of Mine, rv., v. ; m A Gleam of 
Sunshine, To a Child, The Day is Done, The Fire of 
Driftwood, designation, The Open Window, The Ladder 
of St. Augusti7ie, My Lost Youth, The Children's Hour, 
Weariness, and other poems ; not that we are to take all 
sentiments and statements made in the first person as the 
poet's, for often the form of the poem is so far dramatic 
that the poet is assuming a character not necessarily his own, 
hut the recurrence of certain strains, joined with personal 
allusions, helps one to penetrate the slight veil with which 
the poet, here as elsewhere, half conceals and half reveals 
himself. The friendly associations of the poet may also be 
discovered in several poems directly addressed to persons or 
distinctively alluding to them, and the reader will find it 
pleasant to construct the companionship of the poet out of 
such poems as The Herons of Elmwood, To William E, 
Channing, The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, To Charles 
Sumner, the Prelude to Tales of a Wayside Inn, Haw- 
thorne, and other poems. A study of Mr. Longfellow's 
writings will be found in a paper by the editor of this vol- 
ume, Men and Letters, published by Houghton, Mifflin 
and Company. 



EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE. 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 

[The country now known as Nova Scotia, and called 
formerly Acadie by the French, was in the hands of the 
French and English by turns until the year 1713, when, by 
the Peace of Utrecht, it was ceded by France to Great Brit- 
ain, and has ever since remained in the possession of the 
English. But in 1713 the inhabitants of the peninsula were 
mostly French farmers and fishermen, living about Minas 
Basin and on Annapolis River, and the English government 
exercised only a nominal control over them. It was not till 
1749 that the English themselves began to make settlements 
in the country, and that year they laid the foundations of 
the town of Halifax. A jealousy soon sprang up between 
the English and French settlers, which was deepened by the 
great conflict which was impending between the two mother 
countries ; for the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 
1748, which confirmed the English title to Nova Scotia, was 
scarcely more than a truce between the two powers which 
had been struggling for ascendency during the beginning 
of the century. The French engaged in a long controversy 
with the English respecting the boundaries of Acadie, which 
had been defined by the treaties in somewhat general terms, 
and intrigues were carried on with the Indians, who were 
generally in sympathy with the French, for the annoyance 
of the English settlers. The Acadians were allied to the 
French by blood and by religion, but they claimed to have 
the rights of neutrals, and that these rights had been 



EVANGELINE. 5 

granted to them by previous English officers of the crown. 
The one point of special dispute was the oath of allegiance 
demanded of the Acadians by the English. This they re- 
fused to take, except in a form modified to excuse them 
from bearing arms against the French. The demand was 
repeatedly made, and evaded with constant ingenuity and 
persistency. Most of the Acadians were probably simple- 
minded and peaceful people, who desired only to live undis- 
turbed upon their farms ; but there were some restless spir- 
its, especially among the young men, who compromised the 
reputation of the community, and all were very much under 
the influence of their priests, some of whom made no secret 
of their bitter hostility to the English, and of their deter- 
mination to use every means to be rid of them. 

As the English interests grew and the critical relations 
between the two countries approached open warfare, the 
question of how to deal with the Acadian problem became 
the commanding one of the colony. There were some who 
coveted the rich farms of the Acadians ; there were some 
who were inspired by religious hatred ; but the prevailing 
spirit was one of fear for themselves from the near presence 
of a community which, calling itself neutral, might at any 
time offer a convenient ground for hostile attack. Yet to 
require these people to withdraw to Canada or Louisburg 
would be to strengthen the hands of the French, and make 
these neutrals determined enemies. The colony finally re- 
solved, without consulting the home government, to remove 
the Acadians to other parts of North America, distributing 
them through the colonies in such a way as to preclude any 
concert amongst the scattered families by which they should 
return to Acadia. To do this required quick and secret 
preparations. There were at the service of the EngHsh 
governor a number of New England troops, brought thither 
for the capture of the forts lying in the debatable land about 
the head of the Bay of Fundy. These were under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, of Massachu- 



6 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

setts, a great-grandson of Governor Edward Winslow, of 
Plymouth, and to this gentleman and Captain Alexander 
Murray was intrusted the task of removal. They were in- 
structed to use stratagem, if possible, to bring together the 
various families, but to prevent any from escaping to the 
woods. On the 2d of September, 1755, Winslow issued a 
written order, addressed to the inhabitants of Grand-Pr^, 
Minas, River Canard, etc., " as well ancient as young men 
and lads," — a proclamation summoning all the males to 
attend him in the church at Grand-Pr^ on the 5th instant, 
to hear a communication which the governor had sent. As 
there had been negotiations respecting the oath of allegiance, 
and much discussion as to the withdrawal of the Acadians 
from the country, though none as to their removal and dis- 
persal, it was understood that this was an important meet- 
ing, and upon the day named four hundred and eighteen 
men and boys assembled in the church. Winslow, attended 
by his officers and men, caused a guard to be placed round 
the church, and then announced to the people his majesty's 
decision that they were to be removed with their families 
out of the country. The church became at once a guard- 
house, and all the prisoners were under strict surveillance. 
At the same time similar plans had been carried out at Pisi- 
quid under Captain Murray, and less successfully at Chig- 
necto. Meanwhile there were whispers of a rising among 
the prisoners, and although the transports which had been 
ordered from Boston had not yet arrived, it was determined 
to make use of the vessels which had conveyed the troops, 
and remove the men to these for safer keeping. This was 
done on the 10th of September, and the men remained on 
the vessels in the harbor until the arrival of the transports, 
when these were made use of, and about three thousand 
souls sent out of the country to North Carolina, Virginia, 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Mas- 
sachusetts. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, 
— a haste which was increased by the anxiety of the offi- 



EVANGELINE. 7 

cers to be rid of the distasteful business, and a confusion 
which was greater from the difference of tongues, — many- 
families were separated, and some at least never came to- 
gether again. 

The story of Evangeline is the story of such a separation. 
The removal of the Acadians was a blot upon the govern- 
ment of Nova Scotia and upon that of Great Britain, which 
never disowned the deed, although it was probably done 
without direct permission or command from England. It 
proved to be unnecessary, but it must also be remembered 
that to many men at that time the English power seemed 
trembling before France, and that the colony at Halifax 
regarded the act as one of self-preservation. 

The authorities for an historical inquiry into this subject 
are best seen in a volume published by the government of 
Nova Scotia at Hahfax in 1869, entitled Selections from 
the Fuhlic Documenis of the Province of Nova Scotia, 
edited by Thomas B. Akins, D. C. L., Commissioner of 
Public Records ; and in a manuscript journal kept by Col- 
onel Winslow, now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society in Boston. At the State House in Boston 
are two volumes of records, entitled French Neutrals, which 
contain voluminous papers relating to the treatment of the 
Acadians who were sent to Massachusetts. Probably the 
work used by the poet in writing Evangeline was An His- 
torical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, by Thomas 
C. Haliburton, who is best known as the author of The Clock- 
Maker, or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of 
Slickville, a book which, written apparently to prick the 
Nova Scotians into more enterprise, was for a long while the 
chief representative of Yankee smartness. Judge Halibur- 
ton 's history was pubhshed in 1829. A later history, which 
takes advantage more freely of historical documents, is A 
History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by Beamish Murdock, 
Esq., Q. C, Halifax, 1866. Still more recent is a smaller, 
well-written work, entitled The History of Acadia from its 



8 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

First Discovery to its Surrender to England by the Treaty 
of Paris, by James Hannay, St. John, N. B., 1879. W. J. 
Anderson published a paper in the Transactioiis of the Lit- 
erary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part 7, 
1870, entitled Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Sco- 
tia, in which he examines the poem by the light of the vol- 
ume of Nova Scotia Archives, edited by T. B. Akins. The 
sketches of travellers in Nova Scotia, as Acadia, or a Month 
among the Blue Noses, by F. S. Cozzens, and Baddeck, by 
C. D. Warner, give the present appearance of the country 
and inhabitants. 

The measure of Evangeline is what is commonly known 
as English dactylic hexameter. The hexameter is the mea- 
sure used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by 
Virgil in the jEneid, but the difference between the Eng- 
lish language and the Latin or Greek is so great, especially 
when we consider that in English poetry every word must 
be accented according to its customary pronounciation, 
while in scanning Greek and Latin verse accent follows the 
quantity of the vowels, that in applying this term of hexa- 
meter to Evangeline it must not be supposed by the reader 
that he is getting the effect of Greek hexameters. It is the 
Greek hexameter translated into English use, and some 
have maintained that the verse of the Uiad is better repre- 
sented in the English by the trochaic measure of fifteen syl- 
lables, of which an excellent illustration is in Tennyson's 
Locksley Hall ; others have compared the Greek hexameter 
to the ballad metre of fourteen syllables, used notably by 
Chapman in his translation of Homer's Iliad. The mea- 
sure adopted by Mr. Longfellow has never become very 
popular in English poetry, but has repeatedly been at- 
tempted by other poets. The reader will find the subject 
of hexameters discussed by Matthew Arnold in his lectures 
On Translating Homer ; by James Spedding in English 
Hexameters, in his recent volume, Reviews and Discus- 
sions, Literary, Folitical and Historical, not relating to 



EVANGELINE. 9 

Bacon ; and by John Stuart Blackle in Remarks on Eng- 
lish Hexameters, contained in his volume Horoe Helle- 
niece. 

The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melan- 
choly which marks the greater part of the poem, and the 
poet's fine sense of harmony between subject and form is 
rarely better shown than in this poem. The fall of the 
verse at the end of the line and the sharp recovery at the 
beginning of the next will be snares to the reader, who 
must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The voice nat- 
urally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and this rest, 
or caesural pause, should be carefully regarded ; a little 
practice will enable one to acquire that habit of reading the 
hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the climbing of 
a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descend- 
ing the other side. The charm in reading Evangeline 
aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, which is the 
essential in all good reading, is found in this gentle labor of 
the former half of the line, and gentle acceleration of the 
latter half.] 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 
and the hemlocks, 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct 
in the twilight. 

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and pro- 
phetic, 

1. A primeval forest is, strictly speaking, one which has never 
been disturbed by the axe. 

3. Druids were priests of the Celtic inhabitants of ancient 
Gaul and Britain. The name was probably of Celtic origin, but 
its form may have been determined by the Greek word drils, an 
oak, since their places of worship were consecrated groves of 
oak. Perhaps the choice of the image was governed by the 
analogy of a religion and tribe that were to disappear before a 
stronger power. 



10 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- 
boring ocean 5 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval; but where are the 
hearts that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland 
the voice of the huntsman ? 

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Aca- 
dian farmers, — 

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the 
woodlands, 10 

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
of heaven ? 

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for- 
ever departed ! 

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts 
of October 

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
far o'er the ocean. 

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village 
of Grand-Pre. 15 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, 
and is patient, 

4. A poetical description of an ancient harper will be found 
in the Introduction to the Lay of the Last 3Iinstrel, by Sir Walter 
Scott. 

8. Observe how the tragedy of the story is anticipated by this 
picture of the startled roe. 



EVANGELINE. 11 

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 

devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines 

of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 



PART THE FIRST. 

I. 

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 

Minas, 20 

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched 

to the eastward, 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks 

without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 

labor incessant, 

19. In the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie ; it after- 
wards was called Arcadia, Accadia, or L'Acadie. The name is 
probably a French adaptation of a word common among the 
Micmac Indians living there, signifying place or region, and used 
as an affix to other words as indicating the place where various 
things, as cranberries, eels, seals, were found in abundance. The 
French turned this Indian term into Cadie or Acadie ; the Eng- 
lish into Quoddy, in which form it remains when applied to the 
Quoddy Indians, to Quoddy Head, the last point of the United 
States next to Acadia, and in the compound Passamaquoddy, or 
Pollock-Ground. 

21. Compare, for effect, the first line of Goldsmith's The 
Traveller. Grand-Prd will be found on the map as part of the 
township of Horton. 

24. The people of Acadia are mainly the descendants of the 
colonists who were brought out to La Have and Port Royal by 
Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay between the years 1633 and 1638. 



12 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons the 

flood-gates 25 

Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 

the meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards 

and cornfields 
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away 

to the northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the 

mountains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists fi;om the mighty 

Atlantic 30 

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their sta- 
tion descended. 
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 

village. 
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 

of hemlock, 
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign 

of the Henries. 

These colonists came from Rochelle, Saintonge, and Poitou, so 
that they were drav/n from a very limited area on the west coast 
of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendue and 
Charente Infdrieure. This circumstance had some influence on 
their mode of settling the lands of Acadia, for they came from a 
country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial 
dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt 
with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practise 
in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282, 283. An excel- 
lent account of dikes and the flooding of lowlands, as practised 
in Holland, may be found in A Farmer'' s Vacation, by George E. 
Waring, Jr. 

29. Blomidon is a mountainous headland of red sandstone, sur- 
mounted by a perpendicular wall of basaltic trap, the whole about 
four hundred feet in height, at the entrance of the Basin of 
Minas. 



EVANGELINE. 13 

Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and 
gables projecting 35 

Over the basement below protected and shaded the 
doorway. 

There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when 
brightly the sunset 

Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the 
chimneys. 

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in 
kirtles 

Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the 
golden 40 

Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles 
within doors 

Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and 
the songs of the maidens. 

Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and 
the children 

Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to 
bless them. 

Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose ma- 
trons and maidens, 45 

Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate 
welcome. 

Then came the laborers home from the field, and se- 
renely the sun sank 

36. The characteristics of a Normandy village may be further 
learned by reference to a pleasant little sketch-book, published 
a few years since, called Normandy Picturesque, by Henry Black- 
burn, and to Through Normandy, by Katharine S. Macquoid. 

39. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the jacket only, 
sometimes to the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full 
kirtle was always both ; a half kirtle was a term applied to 
either. A man's jacket was sometimes called a kirtle ; here the 
reference is apparently to the full kirtle worn by women. 



14 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from 

the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the 

village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense 

ascending, so 

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and 

contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian 

farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were 

they free from 
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice 

of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 

windows ; 55 

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts 

of the owners ; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in 

abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the 

Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of 

Grand-Pre, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing 

his household, eo 

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of 

the village. 

49. A ngelus Domini is the full name given to the hell which, at 
morning, noon, and night, called the people to prayer, in com- 
memoration of the visit of the angel of the Lord to the Virgin 
Mary. It was introduced into France in its modern form in the 
sixteenth century. 



EVANGELINE. 15 

Stalworth and stately in form was tbe man of seventy 

winters ; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with 

snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as 

brown as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen sum- 
mers ; 65 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the 

thorn by the wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 

shade of her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed 

in the meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at 

noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the 

maiden. 70 

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell 

from its turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with 

his hyssop 
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon 

them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of 

beads and her missal. 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and 

the ear-rings 75 

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as 

an heirloom, 
Handed down from mother to child, through long gen- 
erations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 

confession, 



16 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Homeward serenely she walked with God's benedic- 
tion upon her. eo 

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of 
exquisite music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of 

the farmer 
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and 

a shady 
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath- 
ing around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and 

a footpath ss 

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 

meadow. 
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a 

penthouse, 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the 

roadside, 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of 

Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well 

with its moss-grown 90 

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for 

the horses. 
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were 

the barns and the farm-yard ; 
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique 

ploughs and the harrows ; 
There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his 

feathered seraglio, 

93. The accent is on the first syllable of antique, where it re- 
mains in the form anticj which once had the same general mean- 
ing. 



EVANGELINE. 17 

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with 
the seKsame 95 

Voice that in ages o£ old had startled the penitent 
Peter. 

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a vil- 
lage. In each one 

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a 
staircase, 

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn- 
loft. 

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and inno- 
cent inmates 100 

Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant 
breezes 

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of 
mutation. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer 

of Grand-Pre 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed 

his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and o*^ oiied 

his missal, 105 

Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest 

devotion ; 

99. Odorous. The accent here, as well as in line 403, is upon 

the first syllable, where it is commonly placed ; but Milton, who 

of all poets had the most refined ear, writes 

" So from the root 
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More airy, last the bright consummate flower 
Spirits odorous breathes." 

Par. Lost, Book V., lines 479-482. 

But he also uses the more familiar accent in other passages, 

as, " An amber scent of ddorous perfume," in Samson Agonistes, 

line 720. 



18 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem 
of her garment ! 

Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness be- 
friended, 

And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of 
her footsteps, 

Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the 
knocker of iron ; uo 

Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the vil- 
lage, 

Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he 
whispered 

Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the 
music. 

But among all who came young Gabriel only was 
welcome ; 

Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the black- 
smith, U5 

Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored 
of all men ; 

For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and 
"•--. nations. 

Has the cio^r. of the smith been held in repute by the 
people. 

Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from 
earliest childhood 

Grew up together as brother and sister ; and Father 
Felician, 120 

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught 
them their letters 

Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the 
church and the plain-song. 
122. The plain-song is a monotonic recitative of the collects. 



EVANGELINE. 19 

But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson 

completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to 

behold him 125 

Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a 

plaything, 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire 

of the cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of 

cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 

darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every 

cranny and crevice, 130 

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring 

bellows. 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in 

the ashes, 
Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into 

the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the 

eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the 

meadow. 135 

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests 

on the rafters. 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous , stone, which 

the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight 

of its fledglings ; 

133. The French have another saying similar to this, that they 
were guests going in to the wedding. 



20 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the 

swallow ! 
Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer 

were children. i4o 

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of 

the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 

thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 

woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that 

was the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their 

orchards with apples ; 145 

She too would bring to her husband's house delight 

and abundance, 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 

II. 

Now had the season returned, when the nights grow 
colder and longer. 
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion en- 
ters. 

139. In Pluquet's Contes Populaires we are told that if one of 
a swallow's young is blind the mother bird seeks on the shore of 
the ocean a little stone, with which she restores its sight ; and 
he adds, "He who is fortunate enough to find that stone in a 
swallow's nest holds a wonderful remedy." Pluquet's book 
treats of Norman superstitions and popular traits. 

144. Pluquet also gives this proverbial saying : — 

" Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie, 
II y aura pommes et cidre a folie." 

(If the sun smiles on Saint Eulalie's day, there will be plenty 
of apples, and cider enough.) 

Saint Eulalie's day is the 12th of February. 



EVANGELINE. 21 

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from 
the ice-bound, iso 

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical is- 
lands. 

Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds 
of September 

Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with 
the angel. 

All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 

Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded 
their honey 155 

Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian hunters as- 
serted 

Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the 
foxes. 

Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that 
beautiful season. 

Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of 
All-Saints ! 

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; 
and the landscape leo 

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of child- 
hood. 

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless 
heart of the ocean 

Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in 
harmony blended. 

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 
farm-yards, 

159. The Summer of All-Saints is our Indian Summer, All- 
Saints Day being November 1st. The French also give this sea- 
son the name of Saint Martin's Summer, Saint Martin's Day 
being November 11th. 



22 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

WHr of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of 
pigeons, i65 

All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, 
and the great sun 

Looked with the eye of love through the golden va- 
pors around him ; 

While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and 
yellow. 

Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree 
of the forest 

Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with 
mantles and jewels. no 

Now recommenced the region of rest and affection 
and stillness. 

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
light descending 

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 
herds to the homestead. 

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
on each other. 

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the fresh- 
ness of evening. 175 

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 
heifer. 

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 
waved from her collar. 

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human 
affection. 

170. Herodotus, in his account of Xerxes' expedition against 
Greece, tells of a beautiful plane-tree which Xerxes found, and 
was so enamored with that he dressed it as one might a woman, 
and placed it under the care of a guardsman (vii. 31). Another 
writer, ^lian, improving on this, says he adorned it with a neck- 
lace and bracelets. 



EVANGELINE. 23 

Then came tlie shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
from the seaside, 

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them fol- 
lowed the watch-dog, iso 

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
his instinct, 

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and 
superbly 

Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the strag- 
glers ; 

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; 
their protector. 

When from the forest at night, through the starry 
silence, the wolves howled. i85 

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from 
the marshes, 

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks, 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
derous saddles. 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels 
of crimson, wo 

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

193. There is a charming milkmaid's song in Tennyson's drama 
of Queen Mary, Act III., Scene 5, where the streaming of the 
milk into the sounding pails is caught in the tinkling k^s of such 
lines as 

"And you came and kissed rae, milking the cow." 



24 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- 
scended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in 
the farm-yard, 195 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into 
stillness ; 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 
barn-doors, 

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly 
the farmer 

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames 
and the smoke-wreaths 200 

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Be- 
hind him. 

Nodding and mocking along the wall with gestures 
fantastic, 

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 
darkness. 

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm- 
chair 

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates 
on the dresser 205 

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies 
the sunshine. 

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of 
Christmas, 

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before 
him 

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian 
vineyards. 

Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline 
seated, 210 



EVANGELINE. 25 

Spinning flax for the loom tlaat stood in the corner 

behind her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent 

shuttle, 
While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the 

drone of a bagpipe. 
Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 

together. 
As in a church, when the chant of the choir at inter- 
vals ceases, 215 
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest 

at the altar. 
So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion 

the clock clicked. 

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, 

suddenly lifted, 
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back 

on its hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil 

the blacksmith, 220 

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was 

with him. 
" Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 

paused on the threshold, 
" Welcome, Basil, my friend ! Come, take thy place 

on the settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty 

without thee ; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of 

tobacco ; 225 

Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the 

curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial 

face gleams 



26 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist 

of the marshes." 
Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the 

blacksmith. 
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire- 
side ; 230 

" Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and 

thy ballad ! 
Ever in cheerfuUest mood art thou, when others are 

filled with 
Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 

them. 
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up 

a horseshoe." 
Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 

brought him, 233 

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he 

slowly continued : — 
" Four days now are passed since the English ships 

at their anchors 
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon 

pointed against us. 
What their design may be is unknown ; but all are 

commanded 
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his 

Majesty's mandate 240 

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the 

mean time 
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the peo- 
ple." 
Then made answer the farmer : — " Perhaps some 

friendlier purpose 

239. The text of Colonel Wiuslow's proclamation will be found 
in HaliburtoUf i. 175. 



EVANGELINE. 27 

Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the har- 
vests in England 

By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been 
blighted, 245 

And from our bursting barns they would feed their 
cattle and children." 

" Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said warmly 
the blacksmith. 

Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, 
he continued : — 

" Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor 
Port Royal. 

Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 
outskirts, 250 

Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- 
morrow. 

Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 
of all kinds ; 

Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 
scythe of the mower." 

Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 
farmer : — 

249. Louisburg, on Cape Breton, was built by the French as a 
military and naval station early in the eighteenth century, but 
was taken by an expedition from Massachusetts under General 
Pepperell in 1745. It was restored by England to France in the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and recaptured by the English in 
1757. Beau Sejour was a French fort upon the neck of land 
connecting Acadia with the mainland which had just been cap- 
tured by Winslow's forces. Port Royal, afterwards called Anna- 
polis Boyal, at the outlet of Annapolis River into the Bay of 
Fundy, had been disputed ground, being occupied alternately by 
French and English, but in 1710 was attacked by an expedition 
from New England, and after that held by the English govern- 
ment and made a fortified place. 



28 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks 

and our cornfields, 255 

Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean. 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's 

cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow 

of sorrow 
Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is the night 

of the contract. 
Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of 

the village 260 

Strongly have built them and well ; and, breaking the 

glebe round about them. 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for 

a twelvemonth. 
Eene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and 

inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of 

our children ? " 
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 

her lover's, 265 

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father 

had spoken, 
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary en- 
tered. 

III. 

Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of 
the ocean, 

267. A notary is an officer authorized to attest contracts or 
writings of any kind. His authority varies in different coun- 
tries ; in France he is the necessary maker of all contracts where 
the subject-matter exceeds 150 francs, and his instruments, 
which are preserved and registered by himself, are the origi- 
nals, the parties preserving only copies. 



EVANGELINE. 29 

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the no- 
tary public ; 

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the 
maize, hung 270 

Over his shoulders ; his forehead was high ; and 
glasses with horn bows 

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. 

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a 
hundred 

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
great watch tick. 

Four long years in the times of the war had he lan- 
guished a captive, 275 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of 
the English. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- 
picion, 

Kipe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and 
childlike. 

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the chil- 
dren ; 

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the for- 
est, 280 

275. King George's War, which broke out in 1744 in Cape 
Breton, in an attack by the French upon an English garrison, 
and closed with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ; or, the 
reference may possibly be to Queen Anne's war, 1702-1713, 
when the French aided the Indians in their warfare with the col- 
onists. 

280. The Loup-garou, or were-wolf , is, according to an old su- 
perstition especially prevalent in France, a man with power to 
turn himself into a wolf, which he does that he may devour chil- 
dren. In later times the superstition passed into the more inno- 
cent one of men having a power to charm wolves. 



80 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW, 

And of the goblin that came in the night to water the 

horses, 
And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who 

unchristened 
Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers 

of children ; 
And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the 

stable, 
And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in 

a nutshell, 285 

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover 

and horseshoes. 
With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. 
Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the 

blacksmith, 
Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extend- 
ing his right hand, 
" Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, " thou hast heard 

the talk in the village, 290 

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships 

and their errand." 
Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 

public, — 
" Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never 

the wiser ; 

282. Pluqiiet relates this superstition, and conjectures that the 
white, fleet ermine gave rise to it. 

284. A belief still lingers among the peasantry of England, as 
well as on the Continent, that at midnight, on Christmas eve, the 
cattle in the stalls fall down on their knees in adoration of the 
infant Saviour, as the old legend says was done in the stable at 
Bethlehem. 

285. In like manner a popular superstition prevailed in Eng- 
land that ague could be cured by sealing a spider in a goose- 
quill and hanging it about the neck. 



EVANGELINE. 31 

And what their errand may be I know no better than 
others. 

Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil inten- 
tion 295 

Brings them here, for we are at peace ; and why then 
molest us ? " 

"God's name ! " shouted the hasty and somewhat iras- 
cible blacksmith ; 

" Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, 
and the wherefore ? 

Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 
strongest ! " 

But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary 
public, — 300 

" Man is unjust, but God is just ; and finally justice 

Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, that often 
consoled me. 

When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at 
Port Eoyal." 

This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 
repeat it 

When his neighbors complained that any injustice was 
done them. 305 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer re- 
member. 

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 

Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its 
left hand, 

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice 
presided 

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 
of the people. 310 

302. This is an old Florentine story ; in an altered form it is 
the theme of Rossini's opera of La Gazza Ladra. 



32 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of 
the balance, 

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
shine above them. 

But in the course of time the laws of the land were 
corrupted ; 

Might took the place of right, and the weak were 
oppressed, and the mighty 

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 
man's palace 315 

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a sus- 
picion 

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
hold. 

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaf- 
fold, 

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
Justice. 

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit as- 
cended, 320 

Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
thunder 

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 
its left hand 

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of 
the balance. 

And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 
magpie, 

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 
inwoven." 325 

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, 
the blacksmith 

Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth 
no language ; 



EVANGELINE, 33 

All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, 

as the vapors 
Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the 

winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the 
table, 330 

Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with 
home-brewed 

Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
village of Grand-Pre ; 

While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and 
inkhorn. 

Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 
parties, 

Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and 
in cattle. 335 

Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 
completed. 

And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on 
the margin. 

Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the 
table 

Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of sil- 
ver ; 

And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and 
bridegroom, 340 

Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their 
welfare. 

Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 
departed. 

While in silence the others sat and mused by the fire- 
side, 



34 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 

corner. 
Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention 

the old men 345 

Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuvre, 
Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was 

made in the king-row. 
Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 

embrasure. 
Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the 

moon rise 
Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the mead- 
ows. 35(1 
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven. 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the 

angels. 

Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from 

the belfry 
Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and 

straightway 
Rose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned in 

the household. 355 

344. The word draughts is derived from the circumstance of 
drawing the men from one square to another. 

354. Curfew is a corruption of couvre-feu, or cover fire. In 
the Middle Ages, when police patrol at night was almost un- 
known, it was attempted to lessen the chances of crime by mak- 
ing it an offence against the laws to be found in the streets in 
the night, and the curfew bell was tolled, at various hours, ac- 
cording to the custom of the place, from seven to nine o'clock in 
the evening. It warned honest people to lock their doors, cover 
their fires, and go to bed. The custom still lingers in many 
places, even in America, of ringing a bell at nine o'clock in the 
evening. 



EVANGELINE. 35 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the 
door-step 

Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 
gladness. 

Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed 
on the hearth-stone, 

And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the 
farmer. 

Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline fol- 
lowed. 360 

Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the dark- 
ness, 

Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 
maiden. 

Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the 
door of her chamber. 

Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, 
and its clothes-press 

Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were care- 
fully folded 365 

Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline 
woven. 

This was the precious dower she would bring to her 
husband in marriage, 

Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill 
as a housewife. 

Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and 
radiant moonlight 

Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, 
till the heart of the maiden 370 

Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides 
of the ocean. 

Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she 
stood with 



36 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her 

chamber ! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 

orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her 

lamp and her shadow. 375 

Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling 

of sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in 

the moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a 

moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely 

the moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow 

her footsteps, m 

As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered 

with Hagar. 

IV. 

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village 

of Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of 

Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 

riding at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous 

labor 385 

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates 

of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and 

neighboring hamlets, 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian 

peasants. 



EVANGELINE. 37 

Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from tlie 
young folk 

Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numer- 
ous meadows, 390 

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels 
in the greensward, 

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on 
the highway. 

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
silenced. 

Thronged were the streets with people ; and noisy 
groups at the house-doors 

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped to- 
gether. 395 

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
feasted ; 

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers 
together. 

All things were held in common, and what one had 
was another's. 

Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more 
abundant ; 

396. " Real misery was wholly unknown, and benevolence 
anticipated the demands of poverty. Every misfortune was re- 
lieved as it were before it could be felt, without ostentation on 
the one hand, and without meanness on the other. It was, in 
short, a society of brethren, every individual of which was 
equally ready to give and to receive what he thought the com- 
mon right of mankind." — From the Abbd E-aynal's account of 
the Acadians. The Abbd Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal 
was a French writer (1711-1796), who published A Philosophi- 
cal History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the 
East and West Indies, in which he included also some account of 
Canada and Nova Scotia. His picture of life among the Aca- 
dians, somewhat highly colored, is the source from which after 
writers have drawn their knowledge of Acadian manners. 



38 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her 
father ; 400 

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of wel- 
come and gladness 

Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as 
she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the 
orchard, 

Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of be- 
trothal. 

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and 
the notary seated; 405 

There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the black- 
smith. 

Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and 
the beehives, 

Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of 
hearts and of waistcoats. 

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played 
on his snow-white 

Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of 
the fiddler 410 

Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown 
from the embers. 

Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his 
fiddle, 

Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de 
Dunkerque, 

413. Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres was a song written by 
Ducauroi, maitre de diapelle of Henri IV., the words of which 
are : — 

Vous connaissez Cybele, 
Qui sut fixer le Temps ; 
On la disait fort belle, 
M@iue dans ses vieux ans. 



EVANGELINE. 39 

And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the 

music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying 

dances 415 

Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 

meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled 

among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's 

daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the 

blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a sum- 
mons sonorous 420 

Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the mead- 
ows a drum beat. 

Thronged ere long was the church with men. With- 
out, in the churchyard. 



Cette divinit(5, quoique deja grand' mere 
Avait les yeux doux, le teint frais, 
Avait meme certains attraits 
Fermes comme la Terre. 

Le Carillon de Dunkerque was a popular song to a tune played 

on the Dunkirk chimes. The words are : — 

Imprudent, t^mdraire 
A I'instant, je I'espere 
Dans mon juste courroux, 
Tu vas tomber sous mes coups ! 

— Je brave ta menace. 

— Etre moi ! quelle audace t 
Avance done, poltron ! 

Tu trembles ? non, non, non. 

— J'^touffe de colere ! 

— Je ris de ta colere. 

The music to which the old man sang these songs will be found 
in La Cle du Caveau, by Pierre Capelle, Nos. 564 and 739. 
Paris : A. Cotelle. 



40 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and 

hung on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from 

the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 

proudly among them 425 

Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 

clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 

and casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous por- 
tal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 

the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the 

steps of the altar, 430 

Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal 

commission. 
" You are convened this day," he said, " by his Maj- 
esty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 

answered his kindness 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and 

my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must 

be grievous. 435 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our 

monarch : 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 

of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 

from this province 

432. Colonel Winslow has preserved in his Diary the speech 
which he delivered to the assembled Acadians, and it is copied 
by Haliburton in his History 0/ Nova Scotia, i. 168, 167. 



EVANGELINE. 41 

3e transported to other lands. God grant you may 
dwell there 

ilver as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable peo- 
ple ! 440 

Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure ! " 
\.s, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of 

summer. 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters 

his windows, 
iliding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 

from the house-roofs, 445 

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their en- 
closures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 

the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 

then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger, 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 

door-way. 450 

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and* fierce 

imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 

heads of the others 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 

wildly he shouted, — 455 

" Down with the tyrants of England ! we never have 

sworn them allegiance ! 



42 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our 

homes and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 

of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 

the pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry con- 
tention, 460 
Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Feli- 

cian 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of 

the altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed 

into silence 
All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his 

people ; 
Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured 

and mournful 465 

Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the 

clock strikes. 
" What is this that ye do, my children ? what madness 

has seized you ? 
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and 

taught you. 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another ! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers 

and privations ? 470 

Have 3^ou so soon forgotten all lessons of love and 

forgiveness ? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would 

you profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 

hatred ? 



EVANGELINE. 43 

Lo! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gaz- 
ing upon you ! 

See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 
compassion ! 475 

Hark ! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ' O 
Father, forgive them ! ' 

Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 
assail us, 

Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive 
them!"' I 

Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts 
of his people 

Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the pas- 
sionate outbreak, 430 

While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, 
forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 

from the altar ; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 

people responded, 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the 

Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, 

with devotion translated, 435 

Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to 

heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of 

ill, and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women 

and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her 

right hand 



44 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, 
that, descending, 490 

Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, 
and roofed each 

Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned 
its windows. 

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on 
the table ; 

There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant 
with wild flowers ; 

There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh 
brought from the dairy ; 495 

And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of 
the farmer. 

Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the 
sunset 

Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad am- 
brosial meadows. 

Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 

And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial 
ascended, — 500 

Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, 
and patience ! 

Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the vil- 
lage. 

Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of 
the women, 

As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 
departed, 

Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of 
their children. sos 

492. To emblazon is literally to adorn anything with ensigns 
armorial. It was often the custom to work these ensigns into 
the design of painted windows. 



EVANGELINE. 45 

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmer- 
ing vapors 

Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descend- 
ing from Sinai. 

Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus 
sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evange- 
line lingered. 
All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the 

windows 510 

Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by 

emotion, 
" Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ; 

but no answer 
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier 

grave of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house 

of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was 

the supper untasted. 515 

Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with 

phantoms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 

chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate 

rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by 

the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice of the 

echoing thunder 52c 

Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the 

world He created! 



46 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the 

justice of Heaven ; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully 

slumbered tiU morning. 

V. 

Four times the sun had risen and set ; and now on 
the fifth day 

Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the 
farm-house. 525 

Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful pro- 
cession. 

Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the 
Acadian women, 

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to 
the sea-shore. 

Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 
dwellings, 

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and 
the woodland. 530 

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on 
the oxen, 

While in their little hands they clasped some frag- 
ments of playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried ; and 

there on the sea-beach 
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the 

peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the 

boats ply ; 535 

All day long the wains came laboring down from the 

village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his 

setting, 



EVANGELINE. 41 

Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from 
the churchyard. 

Thither the women and children thronged. On a sud- 
den the church-doors 

Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in 
gloomy procession ' 540 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian 
farmers. 

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes 
and their country. 

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary 
and wayworn. 

So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants de- 
scended 

Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives 
and their daughters. 545 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together 
their voices, 

Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic 
Missions : — 

" Sacred heart of the Saviour ! O inexhaustible foun- 
tain ! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission 
and patience ! " 

Then the old men, as they marched, and the women 
that stood by the wayside 550 

Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sun- 
shine above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits 
departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
silence. 
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 
affliction, — 



48 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession ap- 
proached her, 555 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 
meet him, 

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his 
shoulder, and whispered, — 

"Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one 
another 

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 
may happen ! " 56o 

Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, 
for her father 

Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed was 
his aspect ! 

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from 
his eye, and his footstep 

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart 
in his bosom. 

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 
embraced him, ses 

Speaking words of endearment where words of com- 
fort availed not. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mourn- 
ful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of 

embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, 

too late, saw their children 570 

Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest 

entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, 



EVANGELINE. 49 

While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with 

her father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, 

and the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the 

refluent ocean 575 

Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the 

sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slip- 
pery sea-weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and 

the wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle. 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near 

them, 580 

Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian 

farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean, 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 

leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the 

sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from 

their pastures ; sss 

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk 

from their udders ; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars 

of the farm-yard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand 

of the milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no 

Angelus sounded. 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights 

from the windows. m 



50 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had 

been kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from 

wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 

gathered, 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the 

crying of children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in 

his parish, 595 

Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing 

and cheering. 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea- 
shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat 

with her father, 
And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old 

man, 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either 

thought or emotion, eoo 

E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have 

been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to 

cheer him. 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked 

not, he spake not, 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 

fire-light. 
" Benedicite I " murmured the priest, in tones of com- 
passion. 605 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, 

and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child 

on a threshold, 



EVANGELINE, 51 

Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful pres- 
ence of sorrow. 

Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the 
maiden, 

Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above 
them 610 

Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and 
sorrows of mortals. 

Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together 
in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 

the blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 

horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain 

and meadow, 615 

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 

shadows together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of 

the village. 
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that 

lay in the roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of 

flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the 

quivering hands of a martyr. 620 

615. The Titans were giant deities in Greek mythology who 
attempted to deprive Saturn of the sovereignty of heaven, and 
were driven down into Tartarus by Jupiter, the son of Saturn, 
who hurled thunderbolts at them, Briareus, the hundred-handed 
giant, was in mythology of the same parentage as the Titans, 
but was not classed with them. 



52 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning 
thatch, and, uplifting, 

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a 
hundred house-tops 

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter- 
mingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 
shore and on shipboard. 

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 
anguish, 625 

" We shall behold no more our homes in the village of 
Grand-Pre ! " 

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm- 
yards, 

Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing 
of cattle 

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs 
interrupted. 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleep- 
ing encampments 63o 

Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the 
Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the 
speed of the whirlwind, 

621. Gleeds. Hot, burning coals ; a Chaucerian word : — 

" And wafres piping hoot out of the gleede." 

Canterbury Tales, 1. 3379. 

The burning of the houses was in accordance with the instruc- 
tions of the Governor to Colonel Winslow, in case he should fail 
in collecting all the inhabitants : " You must proceed by the most 
vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to em- 
bark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of 
shelter or support, by burning their houses and by destroying 
everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the 
country." 



EVANGELINE. 53 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the 

river. 
Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the 

herds and the horses 
Broke through their folds and fences, and madly 

rushed o'er the meadows. eso 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the 
priest and the maiden 

Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and 
widened before them ; 

And as they turned at length to speak to their silent 
companion, 

Lo ! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad 
on the seashore 

Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had de- 
parted. 640 

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the 
maiden 

Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her 
terror. 

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on 
his bosom. 

Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious 
slumber ; 

And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a 
multitude near her. 645 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gaz- 
ing upon her. 

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com- 
passion. 

Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the 
landscape, 



54 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces 

around her, 
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering 

senses. 650 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the peo- 
ple,— 
" Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 

season 
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land 

of our exile, 
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the 

churchj^ard." 
Such were the words of the priest. And there in 

haste by the sea-side, 655 

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral 

torches. 
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of 

Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 

sorrow, 
Lo ! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast 

congregation, 
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with 

the dirges. eeo 

'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of 

the ocean. 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hur- 
rying landward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of 

embarking ; 

657. The bell was tolled to mark the passage of the soul into 
the other world ; the book was the service book. The phrase 
" bell, book, or candle " was used in referring to excommunica- 
tion. 



EVANGELINE. 66 

And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of 

the harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the 

village in ruins. 665 



PART THE SECOND. 

I. 

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of 

Grand-Pre, 
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels de- 
parted. 
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into 

exile. 
Exile without an end, and without an example in 

story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians 

landed ; m 

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the 

wind from the northeast 
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks 

of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from 

city to city. 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 

savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where 

the Father of Waters 675 

Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to 

the ocean. 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 

mammoth. 
677. Bones of the mastodon, or mammoth, have been found 



5Q HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Friends they sought and homes ; and many, despairing, 
heart-broken. 

Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend 
nor a fireside. 

Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the 
churchyards. eso 

Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and 
wandered. 

Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all 
things. 

Fair was she and young ; but, alas ! before her ex- 
tended, 

Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 
pathway 

Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and 
suffered before her, ess 

Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 
abandoned. 

As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is 
marked by 

Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in 
the sunshine. 

Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 
unfinished ; 

As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 
shine, 690 

Suddenly paused in the sky, sl^S, fading, slowly de- 
scended 

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 

Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the 
fever within her, 

scattered all over the territory of the United States and Canada, 
but the greatest number have been collected in the Salt Licks of 
Kentucky, and in the States of Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and 
Alabama. 



EVANGELINE. 67 

Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of 
the spirit, 

She would commence again her endless search and en- 
deavor ; 695 

Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the 
crosses and tombstones, 

Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps 
in its bosom 

He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber be- 
side him. 

Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whis- 
per, 

Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her for- 
ward. 700 

Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her be- 
loved and known him. 

But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgot- 
ten. 

" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh, yes ! we have 
seen him. 

He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone 
to the prairies ; 

Coureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and 
trappers." 705 

699. Observe the diminution in this line, by which one is led 
to the airy hand in the next. 

705. The coureurs-deb-uois formed a class of men, very early in 
Canadian history, produced by the exigencies of the fur-trade. 
They were French by birth, but by long affiliation with the In- 
dians and adoption of their customs had become half -civilized 
vagrants, whose chief vocation was conducting the canoes of the 
traders along the lakes ;d rivers of the interior. Bushrangers 
is the English equivalent. They played an important part in the 
Indian wars, but were nearly as lawless as the Indians them- 
selves. The reader will find them frequently referred to in 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " said others ; "' Oh, yes ! we 

have seen him. 
He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana." 
Then would they say, " Dear child ! why dream and 

wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel ? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as 

loyal ? 710 

Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 

loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy! 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's 

tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, 

" I cannot ! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, 

and not elsewhere. 715 

For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and 

illumines the pathway. 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 

darkness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father confessor. 
Said, with a smile, " O daughter ! thy God thus 

speaketh within thee ! 
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 

wasted ; 720 

Parkman's histories, especially in The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 
The Discovery of the Great West, and Fron^enac and New France 
under Louis XIV. 

101. A voyageur is a river boatman, and is a term applied 
usually to Canadians. 

713. St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Siena 
were both celebrated for their vows of virginity. Hence the say- 
ing to braid St. Catherine's tresses, of one devoted to a single life. 



EVANGELINE. 59 

If it enricli not the heart of another, its waters, re- 
turning 

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 
of refreshment ; 

That which the fountain sends forth returns again to 
the fountain. 

Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work 
of affection ! 

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 
is godlike. 725 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 
is made godlike. 

Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 
worthy of heaven ! " 

Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 
and waited. 

Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the 
ocean. 

But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 
whispered, " Despair not ! " 730 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheer- 
less discomfort. 

Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of 
existence. 

Let me essay, O Muse ! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
steps ; — 

Not through each devious path, each changeful year 
of existence ; 

But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through 
the valley : 735 

Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of 
its water 

Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals 
only; 



60 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms 

that conceal it, 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous 

murmur ; 
Happy, at length, if he find a spot where it reaches 

an outlet. 740 

11. 

It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 
River, 

Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wa- 
bash, 

Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mis- 
sissippi, 

Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 
boatmen. 

It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the 
shipwrecked 745 

Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating to- 
gether. 

Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a com- 
mon misfortune ; 

Men and women and children, who, guided by hope 
or by hearsay, 

Sought for their kith and their kin among the few- 
acred farmers 

On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope- 

loUSaS. 750 

741. The Iroquois gave to this river the name of Ohio, or the 
Beautiful River, and La Salle, who was the first European to 
discover it, preserved the name, so that it was transferred to 
maps very early. 

750. Between the 1st of January and the 13th of May, 1765, 
about six hundred and fifty Acadians had arrived at New Or- 



EVANGELINE. 61 

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the 
Father Felician. 

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness 
sombre with forests, 

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river ; 

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on 
its borders. 

Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, 
where plumelike 755 

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept 
with the current. 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand- 
bars 

Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of 
their margin. 

Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pel- 
icans waded. 

Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the 
river, 760 

Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gar- 
dens. 

Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and 
dove-cots. 

They were approaching the region where reigns per- 
petual summer, 

leans. Louisiana had been ceded by France to Spain in 1762, 
but did not really pass under the control of the Spanish until 
1769. The existence of a French population attracted the wan- 
dering Acadians, and they were sent by the authorities to form 
settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas. They afterward formed 
settlements on both sides of the Mississippi from the German 
Coast up to Baton Rouge, and even as high as Pointe Couple. 
Hence the name of Acadian Coast, which a portion of the banks 
of the river still bears. See Gayarrd's History of Louisiana : 
The French Dominiony vol. ii. 



62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of 
orange and citron, 

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the east- 
ward. 765 

They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering 
the Bayou of Plaquemine, 

Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious 
waters, 

Which, like a network of steel, extended in every 
direction. 

Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs 
of the cypress 

Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid- 
air 770 

Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 
cathedrals. 

Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by 
the herons 

Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at 
sunset. 

Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac 
laughter. 

Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed 
on the water, 775 

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustain- 
ing the arches, 

Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through 
chinks in a ruin. 

Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things 
around them ; 

And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder 
and sadness, — 

Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be 
compassed. 78o 



EVANGELINE. 63 

As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the 

prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking 

mimosa. 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of 

evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom 

has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that 

faintly 785 

Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through 

the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the 

shape of a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered 

before her. 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer 

and nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one 

of the oarsmen, 790 

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven- 

ture 
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a 

blast on his bugle. 
Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy 

the blast rang, 
Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the 

forest. 
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred 

to the music. 795 

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance, 
Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant 

branches ; 



64 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But not a voice replied ; no answer came from the 

darkness ; 
And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain 

was the silence. 
Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed 

through the midnight, soo 

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat- 
songs, 
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers, 
While through the night were heard the mysterious 

sounds of the desert. 
Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the 

forest, 
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of 

the grim alligator, 805 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 
shades ; and before them 

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undula- 
tions 

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 
the lotus 

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boat- 
men. 810 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magno- 
lia blossoms. 

And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan 
islands. 

Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming 
hedges of roses, 

Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were sus- 
pended. 815 



EVANGELINE. 65 

Under the bouglis of Wachita willows, that grew by 
the margin, 

Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on 
the greensward, 

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers 
slumbered. 

Over them vast and high extended the cope of a 
cedar. 

Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and 
the grapevine 820 

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of 
Jacob, 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, de- 
scending, 

Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blos- 
som to blossom. 

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
beneath it. 

Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an 
opening heaven 825 

Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions 
celestial. 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the 

water, 
Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters 

and trappers. 
Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the 

bison and beaver. sso 

At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful 

and careworn. 
Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and 

a sadness 



66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly 
written. 

Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and 
restless. 

Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of 
sorrow. 835 

Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 
island. 

But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of pal- 
mettos ; 

So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed 
in the willows ; 

All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, 
were the sleepers ; 

Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumber- 
ing maiden. 84o 

Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on 
the prairie. 

After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died 
in the distance, 

As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 
maiden 

Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father 
Felician ! 

Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel 
wanders. 845 

Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition ? 

Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my 
spirit ? " 

Then, with a blush, she added, " Alas for my credu- 
lous fancy ! 

Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 
meaning." 

But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as 
he answered, — 85o 



EVANGELINE. 67 

" Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to 

me without meaning, 
Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on 

the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor 

is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 

calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the 

southward, 855 

On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur 

and St. Martin. 
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again 

to her bridegroom, 
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his 

sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of 

fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of 

heavens seo 

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of 

the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of 

Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued 
their journey. 

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western 
horizon 

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the 
landscape ; 865 

Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 

Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and min- 
gled together. 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of 
silver, 

Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the mo- 
tionless water. 

Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweet- 
ness. 870 

Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of 
feeling 

Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 
around her. 

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 
wildest of singers. 

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 
water, 

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 

music, 875 

That the whole air and the woods and the waves 

seemed silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring 

to madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 

Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lam- 
entation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad 

in derision, sse 

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the 

tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on 

the branches. 

878. The Bacchantes were worshippers of the god Bacchus, 
who in Greek mythology presided over the vine and its fruits. 
They gave themselves up to all manner of excess, and their 
songs and dances were to wild, intoxicating measures. 



EVANGELINE. 69 

With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed 
with emotion, 

Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through 
the green Opelousas, 

And, through the amber air, above the crest of the 
woodland, 885 

Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighbor- 
ing dwelling ; — 

Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing 
of cattle. 

in. 

Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks 
from whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe 
flaunted, 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at 
Yule-tide, 890 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. 
A garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blos- 
soms. 

Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was 
of timbers 

Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to- 
gether. 

Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns 
supported, 895 

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious 
veranda. 

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended 
around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the 
garden. 



70 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual sym- 
bol, 

Scenes o£ endless wooing, and endless contentions of 
rivals. 900 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow 
and sunshine 

Ean near the tops of the trees ; but the house itself 
was in shadow, 

And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly ex- 
panding 

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke 
rose. 

In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 
pathway 905 

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the 
limitless prairie, 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descend- 
ing- 
Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy 

canvas 
Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm 

in the tropics. 
Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of 

grapevines. 910 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of 

the prairie. 
Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and 

stirrups. 
Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of 

deerskin. 
Broad and brown was the face that from under the 

Spanish sombrero 
Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of 

its master. 915 



EVANGELINE. 71 

Round about him were numberless herds of kine that 
were grazing 

Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory- 
freshness 

That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the 
landscape. 

Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and ex- 
panding 

Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that re- 
sounded 920 

Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air 
of the evening. 

Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the 
cattle 

Rose like flakco of foam on the adverse currents of 
ocean. 

Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed 
o'er the prairie, 

And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the 
distance. 925 

Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through 
the gate of the garden 

Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden ad- 
vancing to meet him. 

Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amaze- 
ment, and forward 

Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of won- 
der ; 

When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 
blacksmith. 930 

Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the 
garden. 

There in an arbor of roses with endless question and 
answer 



72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their 

friendly embraces, 
Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 

thoughtful. 
Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not ; and now dark 

doubts and misgivings 935 

Stole o'er the maiden's heart ; and Basil, somewhat 

embarrassed, 
Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the 

Atchafalaya, 
How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's 

boat on the bayous ? " 
Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade 

passed. 
Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a trem- 
ulous accent, 940 
"Gone? is Gabriel gone?" and, concealing her face 

on his shoulder, 
All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept 

and lamented. 
Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe 

as he said it, — 
" Be of good cheer, my child ; it is only to-day he 

departed. 
Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my herds and 

my horses. 945 

Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his 

spirit 
Could no longer endure .the calm of this quiet exis- 
tence. 
Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, 
Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles, 
He at length had become so tedious to men and to 

maidens, 950 



EVANGELINE. TS 

Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and 

sent him 
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 

Spaniards. 
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 

beaver. 
Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow the fugi- 
tive lover; 955 
He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the 

streams are against him. 
Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of 

the morning, 
We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his 

prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the 

banks of the river, 
Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 

fiddler. 96o 

Long under Basil's roof had he lived, like a god on 

Olympus, 
Having no other care than dispensing music to mor- 
tals. 
Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his 

fiddle. 
" Long live Michael," they cried, " <'.ur brave Acadian 

minstrel ! " 
As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession ; and 

straightway 965 

Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting 

the old man 
Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, 

enraptured, 



74 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gos- 
sips, 

Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 
daughters. 

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 
blacksmith, 97a 

All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal 
demeanor ; 

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and 
the climate. 

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his 
who would take them ; 

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go 
and do likewise. 

Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 
veranda, 975 

Entered the hall of the house, where already the sup- 
per of Basil 

Waited his late return ; and they rested and feasted 
together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness de- 
scended. 

All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape 
with silver. 

Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars ; but 
within doors, 980 

Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 
glimmering lamplight. 

Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, 
the herdsman 

Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless 
profusion. 

Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchi- 
toches tobacco, 



EVANGELINE. 75 

Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled 

as they listened : — 985 

" Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been 

friendless and homeless. 
Welcome once more to a home, that is better per- 
chance than the old one ! 
Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the 

rivers ; 
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the 

farmer ; 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a 

keel through the water. 990 

All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom ; 

and grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed 

in the prairies ; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and 

forests of timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed 

into houses. 995 

After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow 

with harvests. 
No King George of England shall drive you away from 

your homesteads. 
Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your 

farms and your cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from 

his nostrils. 
While his huge, brown hand came thundering down 

on the table, 1000 

So that the guests all started; and Father Felician, 

astounded. 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to 

his nostrils. 



76 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were 
milder and gayer : — 

*' Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the 
fever ! 

For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, 1005 

Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a 
nutshell ! " 

Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot- 
steps approaching 

Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy 
veranda. 

It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian 
planters. 

Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the 
herdsman. 1010 

Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and 
neighbors : 

Friend clasped friend in his arms ; and they who 
before were as strangers. 

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each 
other. 

Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country 
together. 

But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, pro- 
ceeding 1015 

From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious 
fiddle, 

Broke up all further speech. Away, like children 
delighted. 

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to 
the maddening 

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to 
the music. 

Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of flutter- 
ing garments. 1020 



EVANGELINE. 77 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest 

and the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present and 

future ; 
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within 

her 
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the 

music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepres- 
sible sadness 1025 
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into 

the garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 

the forest. 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On 

the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 

gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 

devious spirit. loso 

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers 

of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers 

and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 

Carthusian. 

1033. The Carthusians are a monastic order founded in the 
twelfth century, perhaps the most severe in its rules of all reli- 
gious societies. Almost perpetual silence is one of the vows ; the 
monks can talk together but once a week ; the labor required of 
them is unremitting and the discipline exceedingly rigid. The 
first monastery was established at Chartreux near Grenoble in 
France, and the Latinized form of the name has given us the 
word Carthusian. 



78 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 
shadows and night-dews, 

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 
magical moonlight 1035 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable long- 
ings, 

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade 
of the oak-trees. 

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure- 
less prairie. 

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite 
numbers. io4o 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
heavens. 

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 
and worship. 

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 
that temple, 

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, 
" Upharsin." 

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and 
the fire-flies, 1045 

Wandered alone, and she cried, " O Gabriel ! O my 
beloved ! 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold 
thee? 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
reach me ? 

Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path to the 
prairie ! 

Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood- 
lands around me ! i05o 

Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor, 



EVANGELINE. 79 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in 

thy slumbers ! 
When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded 

about thee ? " 
Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoor- 

will sounded 
Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through the 

neighboring thickets, 1055 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 

silence. 
" Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracular cav- 
erns of darkness ; 
And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh resjDonded, 

" To-morrow ! " 

Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the flowers 
of the garden 

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed 
his tresses loeo 

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases 
of crystal. 

" Farewell ! " said the priest, as he stood at the 
shadowy threshold ; 

" See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his 
fasting and famine, 

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the 
bridegi'oom was coming," 

"Farewell! " answered the maiden, and, smiling, with 
Basil descended loes 

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sun- 
shine, and gladness. 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speed- 
ing before them. 



80 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the 

desert. 
Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that suc- 
ceeded, 1070 
Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or 

river. 
Nor, after many days, had they found him ; but vague 

and uncertain 
Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and 

desolate country ; 
Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 
Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 

garrulous landlord 1075 

That on the day before, with horses and guides and 

companions, 
Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the 

prairies. 

IV. 

Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the 

mountains 
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and lumi- 
nous summits. 
Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the 

gorge, like a gateway, loso 

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's 

wagon. 
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and 

Owyhee. 
Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river 

Mountains, 
Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 

Nebraska ; 
And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the 

Spanish sierras, loss 



EVANGELINE. 81 

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind 
of the desert, 

Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to 
the ocean. 

Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn 
vibrations. 

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
beautiful prairies, 

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sun- 
shine, 10.90 

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple 
amorphas. 

Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk 
and the roebuck ; 

Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of rider- 
less horses ; 

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary 
with travel ; 

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's 
children, 1095 

Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terri- 
ble war-trails 

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vul- 
ture. 

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered 
in battle. 

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heav- 
ens. 

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these 
savage marauders ; noo 

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift- 
running rivers ; 

And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of 
the desert, 



82 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by 

the brook-side, 
And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline 

heaven. 
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above 

them. U05 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers 

behind him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden 

and Basil 
Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to 

o'ertake him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke 

of his camp-fire uio 

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but 

at nightfall. 
When they had reached the place, they found only 

embers and ashes. 
And, though their hearts were sad at times and their 

bodies were weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and 

vanished before them. uis 

1114. The Italian name for a meteoric phenomenon nearly 
allied to a mirage, witnessed in the Straits of Messina, and less 
frequently elsewhere, and consisting in the appearance in the 
air over the sea of the objects which are upon the neighboring 
coasts. In the southwest of our own country, the mirage is very 
common, of lakes which stretch before the tired traveller, and 
the deception is so great that parties have sometimes beckoned 
to other travellers, who seemed to be wading knee-deep, to come 
over to them where dry land was. 



EVANGELINE. 83 

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently 

entered 
Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as 

her sorrow. 
She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her 

people. 
From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca- 

manches, 1120 

Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois, 

had been murdered. 
Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest 

and friendliest welcome 
Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and 

feasted among them 
On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the 

embers. 
But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his 

companions, U25 

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the 

deer and the bison. 
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where 

the quivering fire-light 
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms 

wrapped up in their blankets. 
Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and re- 
peated 
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her In- 
dian accent, 1130 
All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, 

and reverses. 
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that 

another 
Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been 

disappointed. 



84 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's 

compassion, 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered 

was near her, uss 

She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had 

ended 
Still was mute ; but at length, as if a mysterious hor- 
ror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the 

tale of the Mo wis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded 

a maiden, 1140 

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from 

the wigwam, 
Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sun- 
shine, 
Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far 

into the forest. 
Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a 

weird incantation, 
Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed 

by a phantom, 1145 

That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the 

hush of the twilight. 
Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to 

the maiden, 
Till she followed his green and waving plume through 

the forest. 
And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by her 

people. 

1145. The story of Lilinau and other Indian legends will be 
found in H. R. Schoolcraft's Algic Researches. 



EVANGELINE. 85 

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline 
listened U50 

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region 
around her 

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest 
the enchantress. 

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the 
moon rose. 

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splen- 
dor 

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling 
the woodland. 1155 

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the 
branches 

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whis- 
pers. 

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's 
heart, but a secret. 

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror. 

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of 
the swallow. iieo 

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of 
spirits 

Seemed to float in the air of night ; and she felt for a 
moment 

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a 
phantom. 

With this thought she slept, and the fear and the 
phantom had vanished. 

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and 
the Shawnee lies 

Said, as they journeyed along, — " On the western 
slope of these mountains 



86 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of 

the Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary 

and Jesus ; 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, 

as they hear him." 
Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline 

answered, hto 

" Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings 

await us ! " 
Thither they turned their steeds ; and behind a spur 

of the mountains, 
Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of 

voices. 
And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a 

river, 
Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit 

Mission. U75 

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 

village. 
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A 

crucifix fastened 
High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by 

grapevines, 
Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneel- 
ing beneath it. 
This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intri- 
cate arches iiso 
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers. 
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of 

the branches. 
Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer 

approaching. 
Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 

devotions. 



EVANGELINE. 87 

But when the service was done, and the benediction 
had fallen iiss 

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the 
hands of the sower, 

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, 
and bade them 

Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled with be- 
nignant expression. 

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in 
the forest. 

And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his 
wigwam. ngo 

There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes 
of the maize-ear 

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd 
of the teacher. 

Soon was their story told ; and the priest with solem- 
nity answered : — 

" Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side, where now the maiden re- 
poses, 1195 

Told me this same sad tale ; then arose and continued 
his journey ! " 

Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an 
accent of kindness ; 

But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter 
the snow-flakes 

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have 
departed. 

" Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest ; 
" but in autumn, 1200 

When the chase is done, will return again to the Mis- 
sion." 

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and 
submissive, 



88 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and af- 
flicted." 

So seemed it wise and well unto all ; and betimes on 
the morrow, 

Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides 
and companions, 1205 

Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at 
the Mission. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each 

other, — 
Days and weeks and months ; and the fields of maize 

that were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger she came, 

now waving about her. 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, 

and forming 1210 

Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged 

by squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 

and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a 

lover, 
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in 

the corn-field. 
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her 

lover. 1215 

" Patience ! " the priest would say ; " have faith, and 

thy prayer will be answered ! 
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from 

the meadow,. 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as 

the magnet ; 



EVANGELINE. 89 

It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 

planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's 

journey 1220 

Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the 

desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of 

passion, 
Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 

fragrance, 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their 

odor is deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, and here- 
after 1225 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the 

dews of nepenthe." 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter — 

yet Gabriel came not ; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the 

robin and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel 

came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was 

wafted 1230 

1219. Silphium laciniatum or compass-plant is found on the 
prairies of Michigan and Wisconsin and to the south and west, 
and is said to present the edges of the lower leaves due north 
and south. 

1226. In early Greek poetry the asphodel meadows were 
haunted by the shades of heroes. See Homer's Odyssey , xxiv. 
13, where Pope translates : — 

'* In ever flowering meads of Asphodel." 
The asphodel is of the lily family, and is known also by the 
name king's spear. 



90 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blos- 
som. 

Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan 
forests, 

Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw 
River. 

And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of 
St. Lawrence, 

Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mis- 
sion. 1235 

When over weary ways, by long and perilous 
marches. 

She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan 
forests. 

Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to 
ruin ! 



Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in sea- 
sons and places 
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering 

maiden ; — 1210 

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian 

Missions, 
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 

army, 
Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous 

cities. 
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremem- 

bered. 
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 

journey ; 1245 

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 

ended. 
1241. A rendering of the Moravian Gnadenhiitten. 



EVANGELINE. 91 

Each succeeding year stole something away from her 
beauty, 

Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and 
the shadow. 

Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray 
o'er her forehead. 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hor- 
izon, 1250 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
morning. 

V. 

In that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- 
ware's waters. 

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the 
apostle. 

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city 
he founded. 

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem 
of beauty, 1255 

And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 
the forest. 

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 
haunts they molested. 

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 
an exile. 

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a, 
country. 

There old Rene Leblanc had died ; and when he 
departed, 1260 

Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descend- 
ants. 

1256. The streets of Philadelplila, as is well known, are many 
of them, especially those running east and west, named for trees, 
as Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, etc. 



92 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Something at least there was in the friendly streets of 
the city, 

Something that spake to her heart, and made her no 
longer a stranger ; 

And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of 
the Quakers, 

For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 1265 

Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and 
sisters. 

So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed en- 
deavor. 

Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncom- 
plaining. 

Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her 
thoughts and her footsteps. 

As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morn- 
ing 1270 

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and ham- 
lets. 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the 

world far below her, 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the 

pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair 

in the distance. 1275 

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his 

image. 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 

beheld him, 
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and 

absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was 

not. 



EVANGELINE. 93 

Over him years had no power ; he was not changed, 

but transfigured ; 1280 

He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and 

not absent ; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others. 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 

taught her. 
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous 

spices, 
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with 

aroma. 1235 

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to 
Meekly follow, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of 

her Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; fre- 
quenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of 

the city. 
Where distress and want concealed themselves from 

the sunlight, 1290 

Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neg- 
lected. 
Night after night when the world was asleep, as the 

watchman repeated 
Loud, through the dusty streets, that all was well in 

the city. 
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her 

taper. 
Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow 

through the suburbs 1295 

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits 

for the market, 
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its 

watchings. 



94 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the 
city, 

Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of 
wild pigeons, 

Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their 
craws but an acorn. 1300 

And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of Sep- 
tember, 

Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake 
in the meadow, 

So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural mar- 
gin, 

Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of ex- 
istence. 

Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, 
the oppressor ; 1305 

But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his 
anger ; — 

Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor at- 
tendants, 

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the 
homeless. 

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows 
and woodlands ; — 

1298. The year 1793 was long remembered as the year when 
yellow fever was a terrible pestilence in Philadelphia. Charles 
Brockden Brown made his novel of A rihur Mervyn turn largely 
upon the incidents of the plague, which drove Brown away from 
home for a time. 

1308. Philadelphians have identified the old Friends' alms- 
house on Walnut Street, now no longer standing, as that in which 
Evangeline ministered to Gabriel, and so real was the story that 
some even ventured to point out the graves of the two lovers. 
See Westcott's The Historic Mansions of Philadelphia, pp. 101, 
102. 



EVANGELINE. 95 

Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gateway 
and wicket 1310 

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem 
to echo 

Softly the words of the Lord : — " The poor ye al- 
ways have with you." 

Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of 
Mercy. The dying 

Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to be- 
hold there 

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with 
splendor, 1315 

Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and 
apostles. 

Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance. 

Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celes- 
tial, 

Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would 
enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, de- 
serted and silent, 1320 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the 
almshouse. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in 
the garden. 

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest 
among them, 

That the dying once more might rejoice in their fra- 
grance and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, 
cooled by the east-wind, 1325 

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the 
belfry of Christ Church, 



96 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows 

were wafted 
Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in 

their church at Wicaco. 
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on 

her spirit ; 
Something within her said, " At length thy trials are 

ended ; " 1330 

And, with light in her looks, she entered the cham- 
bers of sickness. 
Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attend- 
ants. 
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and 

in silence 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing 

their faces. 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow 

by the roadside. 1335 

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, 

for her presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls 

of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the 

consoler, 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it 

forever. 1340 

1328. The Swedes' church at Wicaco is still standing, the 
oldest in the city of Philadelphia, having been begun in 1698. 
Wicaco is within the city, on the banks of the Delaware River. 
An interesting account of the old church and its historic associa- 
tions will be found in Westcott's book just mentioned, pp. 56-67. 
Wilson the ornithologist lies buried in the churchyard adjoining 
the church. 



EVANGELINE. 97 

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night 

time ; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of 

wonder, 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a 

shudder 
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets 

dropped from her fingers, 1345 

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of 

the morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terri- 
ble anguish, 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their 

pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an 

old man. 
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded 

his temples ; 1350 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a 

moment 
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier 

manhood ; 
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are 

dying. 
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the 

fever. 
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled 

its portals, 135s 

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass 

over. 
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit 

exhausted 



98 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in 

the darkness, 
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and 

sinking. 
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied 

reverberations, iseo 

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that 

succeeded 
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint- 
like, 
" Gabriel ! O my beloved ! " and died away into si- 
lence. 
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of 

his childhood ; 
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among 

them, 1365 

Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking 

under their shadow. 
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his 

vision. 
Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his 

eyelids. 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his 

bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents 

unuttered 1370 

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his 

tongue would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling 

beside him. 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly sank 

into darkness, 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a 

casement. 1375 



EVANGELINE. 99 

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the 

sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied 

longing, 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 

patience ! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her 

bosom. 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, " Father, 

I thank thee ! " isso 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from 
its shadow. 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are 
sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- 
yard. 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and un- 
noticed. 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside 
them, 1385 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at 
rest and forever. 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer 
are busy. 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 
from their labors, 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed 
their journey ! 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the 

shade of its branches 1390 

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 



100 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty 

Atlantic 
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from 

exile 
Wandered back to their native land to die in its 

bosom. 
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still 

busy ; 1395 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles 

of homespun, 
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, 
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neigh- 
boring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 

of the forest. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 

[This poem, also written in hexameters, has yet a lighter, 
quicker movement, due to the more playful character of the nar- 
rative. A slight change of accent in the first line prepares one 
for this livelier pace, and the reader will find that the lights and 
shades of the story use whatever elasticity there is in the hex- 
ameter, crisp, varying lines alternating with the steady pulse of 
the dactyl. The poet has built upon a slight tradition which has 
come down to us from the days of the Plymouth settlement, a 
story which depicts in a succession of scenes the life of the Old 
Colony. In doing this he has not cared to follow explicitly the 
succession of events, but has been true to the general history of 
the time, and has in each picture copied faithfully the essential 
characteristics of the original. He has taken the somewhat dry 
and unimaginative chronicles of the time, and touched them with 
a poetic light and warmth, and the reader of this poem who re- 
sumes such a book as Dr. Young's " Chronicles of the Pilgrims " 
will find the simple story of the early settlers to have gained in 
beauty. The poem was published in 1858.] 

I. 
MILES STANDISH. 

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the 

Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive 

dwelling, 

1. The Old Colony is the name which has long been applied to 
that part of Massachusetts which was occupied by the Plymouth 
colonists whose first settlement was in 1620. Massachusetts Bay 
was the name by which was known the later collection of settle- 
ments made about Boston and Salem. 

2. The first houses of the Pilgrims were of logs filled in with 
mortar and covered with thatch. 



102 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan 

leather, 
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan 

Captain. 
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind 

him, and pausing 5 

Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of 

warfare. 
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the cham- 
ber, — 
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of 

Damascus, 
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical 

Arabic sentence, 
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, 

musket, and matchlock. 10 

3. Cordova in Spain was celebrated for a preparation of goat- 
skin which took the name of Cordovan. Hence came cordwain, 
or Spanish tanned goat-skin, and in England shoemakers are still 
often called cordwainers. In France, too, the same word gave 
cordonnier. 

8. The corselet was a light breastplate of armor. One of 
Standish's grandsons is said to have been in possession of his coat- 
of-mail. His sword is in the cabinet of the Massachnsetts Histori- 
cal Society. As "the identical sword-blade used by Miles Stan- 
dish " is also in possession of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth, 
the antiquary may take his choice between them, or credit Stan- 
dish with a change of weapons. Damascus blades are swords or 
cimeters presenting upon their surface a variegated appearance 
of watering, as white, silvery, or black veins in fine lines and fil- 
lets. Such engraved blades were common in the East, and the 
most famous came from Damascus ; the exact secret of the work- 
manship has never been fully discovered in the West. 

10, A fowling-piece is a light gun for shooting birds ; a match- 
lock was a musket, the lock of which held a match or piece of 
twisted rope prepared to retain fire. As late as 1687 match- 
locks were used instead of flint-locks, which had then come into 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 103 

Short of stature he was, but strongly built and ath- 
letic, 

Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and 
sinews of iron ; 

Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was 
already 

Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in 
November. 

Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and house- 
hold companion, 15 

Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the 
window ; 

Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complex- 
ion. 

Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, 
as the captives 

general use. In Bradford and Winslow's Journal (Young's 
Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 125), we are told of a party setting 
out " with every man his musket, sword, and corselet, under the 
conduct of Captain Miles Standish," That these muskets were 
matchlocks, appears from another passage in the same journal 
(p. 142) : " Then we lighted all our matches and prepared our- 
selves, concluding that we were near their dwellings." 

15. Bradford, the historian of the Plymouth Plantation, says 
that John Alden, who was one of the Mayflower company, " was 
hired for a cooper at Southampton, where the ship victualled ; and 
being a hopeful young man, was much desired, but left to his own 
liking to go or stay when he came here [to Plymouth, that is] ; 
but he stayed and married here." In this picture of Miles Stan- 
dish and John Alden, some have professed to see a miniature 
likeness to Oliver Cromwell and John Milton. 

18. The story of the first mission to heathen England is referred 
to here. A monk named Gregory, in the sixth century, passed 
through the slave-market at Rome, and there amongst other cap- 
tives he saw three fair-complexioned and fair-haired boys, in 
striking contrast to the dusky captives about them. He asked 
whence they came, and was answered, " From Britain," and that 



104 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, " Not An- 
gles but Angels." 

Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the 
Mayflower. 20 

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe 

interrupting, 
Spake, in the pride of his heart. Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth. 
" Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons 

that hang here 
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or 

inspection ! 
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flan- 
ders ; this breastplate, 25 
Well I remember the day ! once saved my life in a 

skirmish ; 
Here in front you can see the very dint of the 

bullet 
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabu- 

cero. 

they were called Angli, which was the Latin form of the name 
by which they called themselves, and from which Anglo, England? 
and English are derived. " Non Angli sed Angeli" replied Greg- 
ory ; " they have the face of angels, not of Angles, and they 
ought to be fellow heirs of heaven." Years afterward, the story 
runs, when Gregory was pope, he remembered the fair captives, 
and sent St. Augustine to carry Christianity to them. The story 
will be found at length in E, A. Freeman's Old English History 
for Children^ p. 44. 

25. The history of Miles Standish is not clearly known, but he 
was a soldier in the Low Countries during the defence of the 
Netherlands against the Spanish power, and the poet has made 
much of this little knowledge that we have. 

28. Arcahucero is Spanish for archer, and the same term passed 
over, as weapons changed, into a musketeer and gunsmith. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 105 

Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of 

Miles Standish 
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the 

Flemish morasses." 30 

Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up 

from his writing : 
" Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the 

speed of the bullet ; 
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and 

our weapon ! " 
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of 

the stripling : 
" See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an 

arsenal hanging ; 35 

That is because I have done it myself, and not left it 

to others. 
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excel- 
lent adage ; 
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and 

your inkhorn. 
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible 

army. 
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and 

his matchlock, 40 

38. There is some uncertainty about the derivation of the word 
inkhorn. The usual interpretation refers to the custom of scribes 
carrying ink in a horn attached to their dress, but some etymol- 
ogists make it a corruption from inkern, the terminations erne 
and eron coming from the Saxon ern, earn, a secret place to put 
anything in, inkern being thus a little vessel into which we put 
ink. 

39. The formation of the military company was due chiefly to 
the serious losses that befel the Pilgrims during the first winter, 
leading them to make careful provision against surprises and at- 
tacks from the Indians. 



106 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and 

pillage, 
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my sol- 
diers ! " 
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as 

the sunbeams 
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a 

moment. 
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain 

continued : 45 

" Look ! you can see from this window my brazen how- 
itzer planted 
High on the roof of the church, a preacher who speaks 

to the purpose. 
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible 

logic, 
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of 

the heathen. 
Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the 

Indians : 50 

Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try it 

the better, — 
Let them come if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, or 

pow-wow, 
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokamaha- 

mon ! " 

47. One of the earliest structures raised by the Pilgrims was 
a platform upon the hill overlooking the settlement, where they 
mounted five guns. They had also a common house for ren- 
dezvous, nineteen feet square, but the planting of guns upon the 
log-built meeting-house belongs to a later date. 

52. The sagamore was an Indian chief of the subordinate 
class ; the sachem a principal chief ; the pow-wow a medicine 
man or conjurer. 

63. Names of Indians who are mentioned in the early chroni- 
cles. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 107 

Long at the window he stood, and wistfully gazed 
on the landscape, 

Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath 
of the east-wind, 55 

Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of 
the ocean. 

Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shadows and 
sunshine. 

Over his countenance flitted a shadow like those on 
the landscape. 

Gloom intermingled with light ; and his voice was sub- 
dued with emotion, 

Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause he pro- 
ceeded : • 60 

" Yonder there, on the hill by the sea, lies buried 
Rose Standish ; 

Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me by the 
wayside ! 

She was the first to die of all who came in the May- 
flower ! 

Green above her is growing the field of wheat we have 
sown there. 

Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of 
our people, 65 

Lest they should count them and see how many 
already have perished ! " 

Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, 
and was thoughtful. 

Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, 
and among them 

64. The dead were buried on a bluff by the water-side during 
that first terrible winter, and the marks of burial were carefully 
effaced, lest the Indians should discover how the colony had been 
weakened. The tradition is preserved in Holmes's Annals. 



108 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Prominent three, distinguished ahke for bulk and for 
binding ; 

Barriffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries 
of Csesar, 70 

Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of 
London, 

And, as if guarded by these, between them was stand- 
ing the Bible. 

Musing a moment before them. Miles Standish paused, 
as if doubtful 

Which of the three he should choose for his consola- 
tion and comfort, 

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous cam- 
paigns of the Romans, 75 

Or the Artillery practice, designed for belligerent 
Christians. 

Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponder- 
ous Roman, 

Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, 
and in silence 

70. The elaborate title of Standish's military book was : 
" Militarie Discipline : or the Young Artillery Man, Wherein is 
Discoursed and Shown the Postures both of Musket and Pike, 
the Exactest way, &c., Together with the Exercise of the Foot 
in their Motions, with much variety : As also, diverse and sev- 
eral Forms for the Imbatteling small or great Bodies demon- 
strated by the number of a single Company with their Reduce- 
ments. Very necessary for all such as are Studious in the Art 
Military. Whereunto is also added the Postures and Beneficiall 
Use of the Halfe-Pike joyned with the Musket. With the 
way to draw up the Swedish Brigade. By Colonel William 
Barriffe." Barriffe was a Puritan, and added to his title-page : 
" Psalmes 144 : 1. Blessed be the Lord my Strength which 
teacheth my hands to warre and my fingers to fight." 

71. Goldinge was a voluminous translator, and his translation 
of Ovid's Metamorphoses was highly regarded. He was patron- 
ized by Sir Philip Sidney. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 109 

Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks 

thick on the margin, 
Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the battle was 

hottest. 80 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 

of the stripling, 
Busily writing epistles important, to go by the May- 
flower, 
Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, 

God willing ! 
Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible 

winter. 
Letters written by Alden, and full of the name of 

Priscilla, 85 

Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden 

Priscilla ! 

II. 

LOVE AND FEIENDSHIP. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 

of the stripling. 
Or an occasional sigh from the laboring heart of the 

Captain, 
Reading the marvellous words and achievements of 

Julius Caesar. 
After a while he exclaimed, as he smote with his hand, 

palm downwards, so 

82. The Mayflower began her return voyage April 5, 1621. 
Not a single one of the emigrants returned in her, in spite of the 
" terrible winter." 

85. Among the names of the Mayflower company are those of 
" Mr. William Mullines and his wife, and 2 children, Joseph and 
Priscila ; and a servant, Robart Carter." 



110 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Heavily on the page : ''A wonderful man was this 
Caesar ! 

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fel- 
low 

Who could both write and fight, and in both was 
equally skilful ! " 

Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the 
comely, the youthful : 

" Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen 
and his weapons. 95 

Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could 
dictate 

Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his 
memoirs." 

" Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hear- 
ing the other, 

" Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Caesar ! 

Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, 100 

Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right 
when he said it. 

Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many 
times after ; 

Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities 
he conquered ; 

He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has re- 
corded ; 

100. " In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps and passing 
by a small village of the barbarians with but few inhabitants, and 
those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the question among 
themselves by way of mockery if there were any canvassing for 
offices there ; any contention which should be uppermost, or feuds 
of great men one against another. To which Csesar made an- 
swer seriously, * For my part I had rather be the first man among 
these fellows, than the second man in Rome.' " Plutarch's Life 
of Ccesar, A. H. Clough's translation. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. Ill 

Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Bru- 
tus ! 105 

Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion 

in Flanders, 
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front 

giving way too. 
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so 

closely together 
There was no room for their swords ? Why, he seized 

a shield from a soldier. 
Put himself sti-aight at the head of his troops, and 

commanded the captains, no 

Calling on each by his name, to order forward the 

ensigns ; 
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for 

their weapons ; 
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other. 
That 's what I always say ; if you wish a thing to be 

well done. 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 

others ! " no 

All was silent again ; the Captain continued his 
reading. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen 
of the stripling 

Writing epistles important to go next day by the 
Mayflower, 

Filled with the name and the fame of the Puritan 
maiden Priscilla ; 

Every sentence began or closed with the name of Pris- 
cilla, 120 

113. The account of this battle will be found in Ccesar^s Com- 
mentaries, book II. eh. 10. 



112 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Till the treacherous peu, to which he confided the 
secret, 

Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name 
of Priscilla ! 

Finally closing his book, with a bang of the ponderous 
cover. 

Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding 
his musket. 

Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Cap- 
tain of Plymouth : 125 

" When you have finished your work, I have something 
important to tell you. 

Be not however in haste ; I can wait ; I shall not be 
impatient ! " 

Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his 
letters, 

Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful atten- 
tion : 

" Speak ; for whenever you, speak, I am always ready 
to listen, 130 

Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles 
Standish." 

Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and 
culling his phrases : 

'•'- 'T is not good for a man to be alone, say the Scrip- 
tures. 

This I have said before, and again and again I repeat 

it; _ 
Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say 

it. 135 

Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and 
dreary ; 

Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friend- 
ship. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 113 

Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden 

Priscilla. 
She is alone in the world ; her father and mother and 

brother 
Died in the winter together ; I saw her going and com- 
ing, 140 
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to the bed of 

the dying, 
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, 

that if ever 
There were angels on earth, as there are angels in 

heaven. 
Two have I seen and known ; and the angel whose 

name is Priscilla 
Holds in my desolate life the place which the other 

abandoned. 145 

Long have I cherished the thought, but never have 

dared to reveal it. 
Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the 

most part. 
Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of 

Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man not of words but 

of actions, 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart 

of a soldier. 150 

Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my 

meaning ; 
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases. 

139. " Mr. Molines, and his wife, his soue and his servant, dyed 
the first winter. Only his daughter Priscila survived and mar- 
ried with John Alden, who are both living and have 11 chil- 
dren." Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, p. 452. 



114 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it in elegant 

language. 
Such as you read in your books of the pleadings and 

wooings of lovers, 
Such as you think best adapted to win the heart 

of a maiden." 155 

When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, 
taciturn stripling. 

All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewil- 
dered. 

Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject 
with lightness. 

Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still 
in his bosom. 

Just as a timepiece stops in a house that is stricken by 
lightning, leo 

Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered 
than answered : 

" Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle 
and mar it ; 

If you would have it well done, — I am only repeating 
your maxim, — 

You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to 
others ! " 

But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn 
from his purpose, i65 

Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain 
of Plymouth : 

" Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gain- 
say it ; 

But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder 
for nothing. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 115 

Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of 

phrases. 
I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to 

surrender, no 

But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare 

not. 
I 'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of 

a cannon. 
But of a thundering ' No ! ' point-blank from the 

mouth of a woman. 
That I confess I 'm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to 

confess it ! 
So you must grant my request, for you are an ele- 
gant scholar, 175 
Having the graces of speech, and skill in the turning 

of phrases." 
Taking the hand of his friend, who still was reluctant 

and doubtful, 
Holding it long in his own, and pressing it kindly, he 

added : 
" Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet deep is the 

feeling that prompts me ; 
Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of 

our friendship ! " iso 

Then made answer John Alden : " The name of 

friendship is sacred ; 
What you demand in that name, I have not the power 

to deny you ! " 
So the strong will prevailed, subduing and moulding 

the gentler. 
Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on 

his errand. 



116 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

III. 
THE lover's errand. 

So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his 
errand, iss 

Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of 
the forest, 

Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins 
were building 

Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of 
verdure. 

Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection and free- 
dom. 

All around him was calm, but within him commotion 
and conflict, 190 

Love contending with friendship, and self with each 
generous impulse. 

To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving 
and dashing, 

As in a foundering ship, with every roll of the vessel, 

Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge of the 
ocean ! 

" Must I relinquish it all," he cried with a wild 
lamentation, — 195 

" Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, the illu- 
sion? 

Was it for this I have loved, and waited, and wor- 
shipped in silence ? 

Was it for this I have followed the flying feet and the 
shadow 

188. Compare the populous nests in Evangeline, 1. 136. In 
the hanging gardens of verdure there is reference to the famous 
hanging gardens of Babylon. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDI SH. 117 

Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shores of New 

England ? 
Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its depths of 

corruption 200 

Rise, like an exhalation, the misty phantoms of passion ; 
Angels of light they seem, but are only delusions of 

Satan. 
All is clear to me now ; I feel it, I see it distinctly ! 
This is the hand of the Lord -, it is laid upon me in 

anger. 
For I have followed too much the heart's desires and 

devices, 205 

Worshipping Astaroth blindly, and impious idols of 

Baal. 
This is the cross I must bear ; the sin and the swift 

retribution. " 

So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went 

on his errand ; 
Crossing the brook at the ford, where it brawled over 

pebble and shallow. 
Gathering still, as he went, the Mayflowers blooming 

around him, 210 

Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful 

sweetness, 

206. Astaroth, in the Old Testament Scripture, is the form 
used for the principal female divinity, as Baal of the principal 
male divmity of the Phoenicians. 

210. The Mayflower is the well-known Epigcea repens, some- 
times also called the Trailing Arbutus. The name Mayflower 
was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic 
ship shows, but it was arpplied by the English, and is still, to the 
hawthorn. Its use here in connection with Epigcea repens dates 
from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims 
so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English 
flower associations. 



118 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Children lost in the woods, and covered with leaves in 

their slumber. 
" Puritan flowers," he said, " and the type of Puritan 

maidens. 
Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Pris- 

cilla ! 
So I will take them to her ; to Priscilla the Mayflower 

of Plymouth, 215 

Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting gift will I 

take them ; 
Breathing their silent farewells, as they fade and 

wither and perish. 
Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of the giver." 
So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on 

his errand ; 
Came to an open space, and saw the disk of the 

ocean, 220 

Sailless, sombre and cold with the comfortless breath 

of the east-wind ; 
Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a 

meadow ; 
Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of 

Priscilla 
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan 

anthem, 

224. The words iu the version which Priscilla used sound some- 
what rude to modern ears, but the music is substantially what we 
know as Old Hundred. The poet tells us (1. 231) that it was 
Ainsworth's translation which she used. Ainsworth became a 
Brownist in 1590, suffered persecution, and found refuge in Hol- 
land, where he published learned commentaries and translations. 
His version of Psalm c. is as follows : — 

1. Bow to Jehovah all the earth. 

2. Serve ye Jehovah with gladness ; before him coine with singing mirth. 

3. Know that Jehovah he God is. It 's he that made us and not we, his flock and 

sheep of his feeding. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 119 

Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the 
Psalmist, 225 

Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comfort- 
ing many. 

Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of 
the maiden 

Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a 
snow-drift 

Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the raven- 
ous spindle. 

While with her foot on the treadle she guided the 
wheel in its motion. 230 

Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of 
Ainsworth, 

Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music to- 
gether, 

Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of 
a churchyard, 

Darkened and overhung by the running vine of the 
verses. 

Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old 
Puritan anthem, 235 

She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest, 

Making the humble house and the modest apparel of 
homespun 

Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of 
her being ! 

Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen and cold 
and relentless, 

Thoughts of what might have been, and the weight 
and woe of his errand ; 240 

4. Oh, with confession enter ye his gates, his courtyard with praising. Confess 

to him, bless ye his name. 

5. Because Jehovah he good is ; his mercy ever is the same, and his faith unto 

all ages. 



120 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

All the dreams that had faded, and all the hopes that 
had vanished, 

All his life henceforth a dreary and tenantless man- 
sion. 

Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrowful faces. 

Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it, 

" Let not him that putteth his hand to the plough look 
backwards ; 245 

Though the ploughshare cut through the flowers of 
life to its fountains. 

Though it pass o'er the graves of the dead and the 
hearths of the living. 

It is the will of the Lord ; and his mercy endureth for- 
ever ! " 

So he entered the house ; and the hum of the wheel 

and the singing 
Suddenly ceased ; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on 

the threshold, 250 

Rose as he entered and gave him her hand, in signal 

of welcome. 
Saying, " I knew it was you, when I heard your step 

in the passage ; 
For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and 

spinning." 
Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of 

him had been mingled 
Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of 

the maiden, 255 

Silent before her he stood, and gave her the flowers for 

an answer. 
Finding no words for his thought. He remembered 

that day in the winter. 
After the first great snow, when he broke a path from 

the village, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 121 

Reeling and plunging along through the drifts that 

encumbered the doorway, 
Stamping the snow from his feet as he entered the 

house, and Priscilla 260 

Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him a seat by 

the fireside. 
Grateful and pleased to know he had thought of her 

in the snow-storm. 
Had he but spoken then ! perhaps not in vain had he 

spoken ; 
Now it was all too late ; the golden moment had van- 
ished ! 
So he stood there abashed, and gave her the flowers 

for an answer. 265 

Then they sat down and talked of the birds and the 
beautiful Spring-time ; 

Talked of their friends at home, and the Mayflower 
that sailed on the morrow. 

" I have been thinki g all day, " said gently the Pu- 
ritan maiden, 

" Dreaming all ni :ht, and thinking all day, of the 
hedge-rowFjy .1 England, — 

They are in bloB , jm now, and the country is all like 
a gardei. , 270 

Thinking of laaes and fields, and the song of the lark 
and the linnet. 

Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neigh- 
bors 

Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip to- 
gether. 

And, at the end of the street, the village church, 
with the ivy 

Climbing the old gray tower, and the quiet graves in 
the churchyard. 275 



122 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my 

religion ; 
Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself back in 

Old England. 
You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it : I 

almost 
Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely 

and wretched." 

Thereupon answered the youth : " Indeed I do not 

condemn you ; 280 

Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this 

terrible winter. 
Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to 

lean on ; 
So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer 

of marriage 
Made by a good man and true. Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth ! " 

Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer 
of letters, — 235 

Did not embellish the theme, nor , vray it in beautiful 
phrases, 

But came straight to the point, and blurted it out like 
a school-boy ; 

Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it 
more bluntly. 

Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puri- 
tan maiden 

Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with won- 
der, 290 

Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned her and 
rendered her speechless ; 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 123 

Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous 

silence : 
" If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to 

wed me, 
Why does he not come himself, and take the trouble 

to woo me ? 
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth 

the winning ! " 295 

Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing 

the matter. 
Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain 

was busy, — 
Had no time for such things ; — such things ! the 

words grating harshly 
Fell on the ear of Priscilla ; and swift as a flash she 

made answer : 
"Has he no time for such things, as you call it, 

before he is married, 300 

Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the 

wedding ? 
That is the way with you men ; you don't understand 

us, you cannot. 
When you have n ade up your minds, after thinking 

of this one and that one. 
Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing one with 

another. 
Then you make known your desire, with abrupt and 

sudden avowal, 305 

And are offended and hurt, and indignant perhaps, 

that a woman 
Does not respond at once to a love that she never sus- 
pected. 
Does not attain at a bound the height to which you 

have been climbing. 



124 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

This is not right nor just ; for surely a woman's af- 
fection 

Is not a thing to be asked for, and had for only the 
asking. 310 

When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but 
shows it. 

Had he but waited awhile, had he only showed that 
he loved me. 

Even this Captain of yours — who knows ? — at last 
might have won me. 

Old and rough as he is ; but now it never can hap- 
pen." 

Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of 
Priscilla, 315 

Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, 
expanding ; 

Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all his battles 
in Flanders, 

How with the people of God he had chosen to suffer 
affliction, 

How, in return for his zeal, they had made him Cap- 
tain of Plymouth ; 

He was a gentleman born, could trace his pedigree 
plainly 320 

Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, in Lanca- 
shire, England, 

321. " There are at this time in England two ancient families 
of the name, one of Standish Hall, and the other of Duxbury 
Park, both in Lancashire, who trace their descent from a com- 
mon ancestor, Ralph de Standish, living in 1221. There seems 
always to have been a military spirit in the family. Froissart, 
relating in his Chronicles the memorable meeting between Rich- 
ard II. and Wat Tyler, says that after the rebel was struck from 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 125 

Who was the son of Ralph, and the grandson of 
Thurston de Standish ; 

Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely de- 
frauded, 

Still bore the family arms, and had for his crest a 
cock argent 

Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the 
blazon. 325 

He was a man of honor, of noble and generous na- 
ture ; 

Though he was rough, he was kindly ; she knew how 
during the winter 

He had attended the sick, with a hand as gentle as 
woman's ; 

Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny it, and 
headstrong, 

Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and placable 
always, 330 

Not to be laughed at and scorned, because he was little 
of stature ; 

For he was great of heart, magnanimous, courtly, 
courageous ; 

Any woman in Plymouth, nay, any woman in Eng- 
land, 

his horse by William Walworth, ' then a squyer of the kynges 
alyted, called John Standysshe, and he drewe out his sworde, 
and put into Wat Tyler's belye, and so he dyed.' For this act 
Standish was knighted. In 1415 another Sir John Standish 
fought at the battle of Agincourt. From his giving the name of 
Duxbury to the town where he settled, near Plymouth, and call- 
ing his eldest son Alexander (a common name in the Standish 
family), I have no doubt that Miles was a scion from this ancient 
and warlike stock." Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, foot- 
note, p. 125. 

326. Terms of heraldry. Argent is silver and gules red. 



126 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Might be happy and proud to be called the wife of 
Miles Standish ! 

But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and 

eloquent language, 335 

Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his 

rival, 
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes overrunning 

with laughter. 
Said, in a tremulous voice, " Why don't you speak for 

yourself, John ? " 



IV. ' 
JOHN ALDEN. 

Into the open air John Alden, perplexed and bewil- 
dered. 

Rushed like a man insane, and wandered alone by the 
sea-side ; 340 

Paced up and down the sands, and bared his head to 
the east-wind. 

Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and fever within 
him. 

Slowly, as out of the heavens, with apocalyptical splen- 
dors, 

Sank the City of God, in the vision of John the Apos- 
tle, 

So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, jasper, and 
sapphire, 345 

Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets uplifted 

Glimmered the golden reed of the angel who measured 
the city. 
344. See the last chapter of the Book of Revelation. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 127 

" Welcome, O wind of the East ! " he exclaimed in 
his wild exultation, 

" Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caves of the 
misty Atlantic ! 

Blowing o'er fields of dulse, and measureless meadows 
of sea-grass, 350 

Blowing o'er rocky wastes, and the grottos and gardens 
of ocean ! 

Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning forehead, 
and wrap me 

Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the fever with- 
in me ! " 

Like an awakened conscience, the sea was moaning 

and tossing, 
Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of the 

sea-shore. 355 

Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tumult of pas- 
sions contending ; 
Love triumphant and crowned, and friendship wounded 

and bleeding, 
Passionate cries of desire, and importunate pleadings 

of duty ! 
" Is it my fault," he said, " that the maiden has chosen 

between us ? 
Is it my fault that he failed, — my fault that I am the 

victor ? " 360 

Then within him there thundered a voice, like the 

voice of the Prophet : 
" It hath displeased the Lord ! " — and he thought of 

David's transgression, 
Bathsheba's beautiful face, and his friend in the front 

of the battle I 



128 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shame and confusion of guilt, and abasement and self- 
condemnation, 

Overwhelmed him at once ; and he cried in the deep- 
est contrition : 365 

" It hath displeased the Lord ! It is the temptation 
of Satan ! " 

Then, uplifting his head, he looked at the sea, and 

beheld there 
Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower riding at 

anchor. 
Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to sail on the 

morrow ; 
Heard the voices of men through the mist, the rattle 

of cordage 370 

Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the mate, and the 

sailors' " Ay, ay. Sir ! " 
Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the dripping air of 

the twilight. 
Still for a moment he stood, and listened, and stared 

at the vessel. 
Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing a phantom. 
Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows the beckon- 
ing shadow. 375 
" Yes, it is plain to me now," he murmured ; " the 

hand of the Lord is 
Leading me out of the land of darkness, the bondage 

of error, 
Through the sea, that shall lift the walls of its waters 

around me, 
Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel thoughts 

that pursue me. 
Back will I go o'er the ocean, this dreary land will 

abandon, sso 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 129 

Her whom I may not love, and him whom my heart 

has offended. 
Better to be in my grave in the green old churchyard 

in England, 
Close by my mother's side, and among the dust of my 

kindred ; 
Better be dead and forgotten, than living in shame 

and dishonor ! 
Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of the narrow 

chamber 385 

With me my secret shall lie, like a buried jewel that 

glimmers 
Bright on the hand that is dust, in the chambers of 

silence and darkness, — 
Yes, as the marriage ring of the great espousal here- 
after!" 

Thus as he spake, he turned, in the strength of his 

strong resolution, 
Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried along in 

the twilight, 390 

Through the congenial gloom of the forest silent and 

sombre, 
Till he beheld the lights in the seven houses of 

Plymouth, 
Shining like seven stars in the dusk and mist of the 

evening. 
Soon he entered his door, and found the redoubtable 

Captain 

392. In a letter written by Edward Winslow, December 11, 
1621, to a friend in England, he says : " You shall understand 
that in this little time that a few of us have been here, we have 
built seven dwelling-houses and four for the use of the planta- 
tion." Young's Chronicles J p. 230. 



130 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial pages of 
Caesar, 395 

Fighting some great campaign in Hainault or Brabant 
or Flanders. 

" Long have you been on your errand," he said with a 
cheery demeanor. 

Even as one who is waiting an answer, and fears not 
the issue. 

" Not far off is the house, although the woods are be- 
tween us ; 

But you have lingered so long, that while you were 
going and coming 400 

I have fought ten battles and sacked and demolished a 
city. 

Come, sit down, and in order relate to me all that has 
happened." 

Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous 
adventure 

From beginning to end, minutely, just as it hap- 
pened ; 

How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in 
his courtship, 405 

Only smoothing a little, and softening down her re- 
fusal. 

But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had 
spoken. 

Words so tender and cruel, " Why don't you speak 
for yourself, John ? " 

Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on 
the floor, till his armor 

Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of 
sinister omen. 410 

All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explo- 
sion. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 131 

E'en as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction 

around it. 
Wildly he shouted, and loud : " John Alden ! you 

have betrayed me ! 
Me, Miles Standish, your friend I have supplanted, 

defrauded, betrayed me ! 
One of my ancestors ran his sword through the heart 

of Wat Tyler ; 415 

Who shall prevent me from running my own through 

the heart of a traitor ? 
Yours is the greater treason, for yours is a treason to 

friendship ! 
You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and 

loved as a brother ; 
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk at my cup, 

to whose keeping 
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts the most 

sacred and secret, — 420 

You too, Brutus ! ah, woe to the name of friendship 

hereafter ! 
Brutus was Caesar's friend, and you were mine, but 

henceforward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, and impla- 
cable hatred ! " 

So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about 
in the chamber. 

Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the 
veins on his temples. 425 

But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the 
doorway, 

Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent im- 
portance. 

Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of 
Indians ! 



132 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further 

question or parley. 
Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its 

scabbard of iron, 430 

Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning 

fiercely, departed. 
Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the 

scabbard 
Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the 

distance. 
Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the 

darkness. 
Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with 

the insult, 435 

Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding his hands 

as in childhood, 
Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth 

in secret. 

Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode wrathful 
away to the council. 

Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his 
coming ; 

Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in de- 
portment, 440 

Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to 
heaven. 

Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of 
Plymouth. 

442. Elder William Brewster. The elder of the Pilgrim 
Church was the minister who taught and administered the sac- 
raments. He was assisted also by an officer named the ruling 
elder, whose function was much the same as that of the deacon in 
Congregational churches at the present day. The teaching elder 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 133 

God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for 

this planting, 
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living seed of a 

nation ; 
So say the chronicles old, and such is the faith of the 

people ! 445 

Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern 

and defiant. 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in 

aspect ; 
While on the table before them was lying unopened a 

Bible, 
Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in 

Holland, 
And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake 

glittered, 450 

included ruling among his duties ; the ruling elder sometimes 
taught in the absence of his superior ; the teaching elder was 
maintained by the people ; the ruling elder was not withdrawn 
from other occupations, and maintained himself. Brewster was 
the ruling elder in the little Plymouth Church, but in the absence 
of Robinson was also their teacher. 

443. In Stoughton's election sermon of 1668 occurs the first 
use, apparently, of this oft-quoted phrase : " God sifted a whole 
nation that he might send a choice grain over into this wilder- 
ness." 

449. The Genevan Bible was the favorite version of the Puri- 
tans, and was clung to long after the King James version had 
been issued. Owing to obstacles in England, the Bible was fre- 
quently printed on the Continent, once at any rate at Amster- 
dam. 

450. As a matter of history, the first recorded instance of the 
rattlesnake skin challenge was in January, 1622, when Tisquan- 
tum the Indian brought a defiance from Canonicus, and the gov- 
ernor returned the skin stuffed with bullets. Holmes, in his 
Annals (i. 177), reminds the reader : " There is a remarkable co- 
incidence in the form of this challenge given by the Scythian 



134 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Filled, like a quiver, with arrows : a signal and chal- 
lenge of warfare. 
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy 

tongues of defiance. 
This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered, and heard 

them debating 
What were an answer befitting the hostile message 

and menace, 
Talking of this and of that, contriving, suggesting, 

objecting ; 455 

One voice only for peace, and that the voice of the 

Elder, 
Judging it wise and well that some at least were con- 
verted. 
Rather than any were slain, for this was but Christian 

behavior ! 
Then out spake Miles Standish, the stalwart Captain 

of Plymouth, 
Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice was husky 

with anger, 46o 

" What ! do you mean to make war with milk and the 

water of roses ? 
Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your howitzer 

planted 
There on the roof of the church, or is it to shoot red 

devils ? 
Truly the only tongue that is understood by a savage 

prince to Darius. Five arrows made a part of the present sent 
by his herald to the Persian king. The manner of declaring war 
by the Aracaunian Indians of South America was by sending 
from town to town an arrow clinched in a dead man's hand." 

457. The poet here has used the words of John Robinson to 
the colonists after the first encounter with the Indians : " Oh, 
how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some be- 
fore you had killed any ! " 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 135 

Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from the mouth 
of the cannon ! " 465 

Thereupon answered and said the excellent Elder of 
Plymouth, 

Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this irreverent lan- 
guage : 

" Not so thought Saint Paul, nor yet the other Apos- 
tles ; 

Not from the cannon's mouth were the tongues of fire 
they spake with ! " 

But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the Captain, 470 

Who had advanced to the table, and thus continued 
discoursing : 

" Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it per- 
taineth. 

War is a terrible trade ; but in the cause that is 
righteous, 

Sweet is the smell of powder ; and thus I answer the 
challenge ! " 

Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden, 
contemptuous gesture, 475 

Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder 
and bullets 

Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the sav- 
age, 

Saying, in thundering tones : " Here, take it ! this is 
your answer ! " 

Silently out of the room then glided the glistening 
savage, 

Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like a 
serpent, 430 

Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of 
the forest. 



136 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

V. 

THE SAILING OF THE MAYFLOWER. 

Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose 

from the meadows, 
There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village 

of Plymouth ; 
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order impera- 
tive, " Forward ! " 
Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, and then 

silence. 485 

Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly out of the 

village. 
Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of his valorous 

army, 
Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, friend of the 

white men. 
Northward marching to quell the sudden revolt of the 

savage. 
Giants they seemed in the mist, or the mighty men of 

King David ; 490 

Giants in heart they were, who believed in God and 

the Bible, — 
Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midianites and 

Philistines. 
Over them gleamed far off the crimson banners of 

morning ; 
Under them loud on the sands, the serried billows, ad- 
vancing, 
Fired along the line, and in regular order retreated. 495 

Many a mile had they marched, when at length the 
village of Plymouth 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 187 

Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on its manifold 
labors. 

Sweet was the air and soft ; and slowly the smoke 
from the chimneys 

Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed steadily east- 
ward ; 

Men came forth from the doors, and paused and talked 
of the weather, 500 

Said that the wind had changed, and was blowing fair 
for the Mayflower ; 

Talked of their Captain's departure, and all the dan- 
gers that menaced. 

He being gone, the town, and what should be done in 
his absence. 

Merrily sang the birds, and the tender voices of 
women 

Consecrated with hymus the common cares of the 
household. 505 

Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows rejoiced 
at his coming ; 

Beautiful were his {eet on the purple tops of the moun- 
tains ; 

Beautiful on the sails of the Mayflower riding at 
anchor. 

Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of 
the winter. 

Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping 
hijr canvas, 510 

Rent bj so many gales, and patched by the hands of 
the sailors. 

Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the 
ocean, 

Dar'jcd a puff of smoke, and floated seaward ; anon rang 

Loud over field and forest the cannon's roar, and the 
echoes 



138 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of de- 
parture ! 515 

Ah ! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the 
people ! 

Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was read from 
the Bible, 

Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended in fervent 
entreaty ! 

Then from their houses in haste came forth the Pil- 
grims of Plymouth, 

Men and women and children, all hurrying down to the 
sea-shore, 520 

Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to the May- 
flower, 

Homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving them here 
in the desert. 

Foremost among them was Alden. All night he 

had lain without slumber. 
Turning and tossing about in the heat and unrest of 

his fever. 
He had beheld Miles Standish, who came back late 

from the council, 525 

Stalking into the room, and heard him mutter and 

murmur. 
Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it 

sounded like swearing. 
Once he had come to the bed, and stood there a mo- 
ment in silence ; 
Then he had turned away, and said : "I will not 

awake him ; 
Let him sleep on, it is best ; for what is the use of 

more talking ! " 530 

Then he extinguished the light, and threw himself 

down on his pallet. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 139 

Dressed as he was, and ready to start at the break of 

the morning, — 
Covered himself with the cloak he had worn in his 

campaigns in Flanders, — 
Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, ready for 

action. 
But with the dawn he arose ; in the twilight Alden 

beheld him 535 

Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest of his 

armor, 
Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of Damascus, 
Take from the corner his musket, and so stride out of 

the chamber. 
Often the heart of the youth had burned and yearned 

to embrace him, 
Often his lips had essayed to speak, imploring for 

pardon ; 540 

AU the old friendship came back with its tender and 

grateful emotions ; 
But his pride overmastered the nobler nature within 

him, — 
Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the burning 

fire of the insult. 
So he beheld his friend departing in anger, but spake 

not, 
Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to death, and he 

spake not ! 545 

Then he arose from his bed, and heard what the peo- 
ple were saying, 
Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen and 

Richard and Gilbert, 

547. The names are not taken at random. Stephen Hopkins, 
Richard Warren, and Gilbert Winslow were all among the May- 
flower passengers, and were alive at this time. 



140 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Joined in the morning prayer, and in the reading of 

Scripture, 
And, with the others, in haste went hurrying down to 

the sea-shore, 
Down to the Plymouth Eock, that had been to their 

feet as a doorstep 550 

Into a world unknown, — the corner-stone of a nation ! 

There with his boat was the Master, already a little 

impatient 
Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind might shift 

to the eastward, 
Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an odor of ocean 

about him. 
Speaking with this one and that, and cramming letters 

and parcels 555 

Into his pockets capacious, and messages mingled to- 
gether 
Into his narrow brain, till at last he was wholly bewil- 
dered. 
Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot placed on 

the gunwale, 
One still firm on the rock, and talking at times with 

the sailors. 
Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and eager for 

starting. seo 

He too was eager to go, and thus put an end to his 

anguish. 
Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is 

or canvas, 
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise 

and pursue him. 
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of 

Priscilla 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 141 

Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that 
was passing. 565 

Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his in- 
tention. 

Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring, 
and patient, 

That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from 
its purpose. 

As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is 
destruction. 

Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mysteri- 
ous instincts ! 570 

Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are mo- 
ments, 

Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall 
adamantine ! 

" Here I remain ! " he exclaimed, as he looked at the 
heavens above him. 

Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the 
mist and the madness. 

Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was staggering 
headlong. 575 

"Yonder snow-white cloud, that floats in the ether 
above me, 

Seems like a hand that is pointing and beckoning over 
the ocean. 

There is another hand, that is not so spectral and 
ghost-like. 

Holding me, drawing me back, and clasping mine for 
protection. 

Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in the 
ether ! sso 

Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and daunt me ; 
I heed not 



142 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Either your warning or menace, or any omen of evil ! 
There is no land so sacred, no air so pure and so 

wholesome. 
As is the air she breathes, and the soil that is pressed 

by her footsteps. 
Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible 

presence 585 

Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting her 

weakness ; 
Yes ! as my foot was the first that stepped on this 

rock at the landing. 
So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the 

leaving ! " 

Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dignified air 

and important. 
Scanning with watchful eye the tide and the wind and 

the weather, 590 

Walked about on the sands, and the people crowded 

around him 
Saying a few last words, and enforcing his careful re- 
membrance. 
Then, taking each by the hand, as if he were grasping 

a tiller. 
Into the boat he sprang, and in haste shoved off to his 

vessel. 
Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry and 

flurry, 595 

Glad to be gone from a land of sand and sickness and 

sorrow. 
Short allowance of victual, and plenty of nothing but 

Gospel ! 
Lost in the sound of the oars was the last farewell of 

the Pilgrims. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES ST AN DISH. 143 

O strong hearts and true ! not one went back in the 

Mayflower ! 
No, not one looked back, who had set his hand to this 

ploughing ! 600 

Soon were heard on board the shouts and songs of 

the sailors 
Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting the ponder- 
ous anchor. 
Then the yards were braced, and all sails set to the 

west-wind, 
Blowing steady and strong ; and the Mayflower sailed 

from the harbor, 
Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leaving far to 

the southward eos 

Island and cape of sand, and the Field of the First 

Encounter, 
Took the wind on her quarter, and stood for the open 

Atlantic, 
Borne on the send of the sea, and the swelling hearts 

of the Pilgrims. 

Long in silence they watched the receding sail of 
the vessel, 

605. The Gurnet, or Gurnet's Nose, is a headland connecting 
with Marshfield by a beach about seven miles long. On its 
southern extremity are two light-houses which light the entrance 
to Plymouth Harbor. 

606. " So after we had given God thanks for our deliverance, 
we took our shallop and went on our journey, and called this 
place The First Encounter." Bradford and Winslow's Journal 
in Young's Chronicles^ p. 159. The place on the Eastham shore 
marked the spot where the Pilgrims had their first encounter 
with the Indians, December 8, 1620. A party under Miles 
Standish was exploring the country while the Mayflower was at 
anchor in Provincetown Harbor. 



144 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Much endeared to them all, as something living and 

human ; eio 

Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt in a vis- 
ion prophetic, 
Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Ply- 
mouth 
Said, " Let us pray ! " and they prayed, and thanked 

the Lord and took courage. 
Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, 

and above them 
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, 

and their kindred 615 

Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the 

prayer that they uttered. 
Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern verge of the 

ocean 
Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a 

graveyard ; 
Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of escaping. 
Lo ! as they turned to depart, they saw the form of an 

Indian, 620 

Watching them from the hill ; but while they spake 

with each other. 
Pointing with outstretched hands, and saying, 

" Look I " he had vanished. 
So they returned to their homes ; but Alden lingered 

a little. 
Musing alone on the shore, and watching the wash of 

the billows 
Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle and flash 

of the sunshine, 625 

Like the spirit of God, moving visibly over the 

waters. 

626. See Genesis i. 2. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 145 

VI. 

PRISCILLA. 

Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the shore 
of the ocean, 

Thinking of many things, and most of all of Pris- 
cilla ; 

And as if thought had the power to draw to itself, like 
the loadstone, 

Whatsoever it touches, by subtile laws of its na- 
ture, 630 

Lo! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was standing 
beside him. 

" Are you so much offended, you will not speak to 

me ? " said she. 
" Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, when you 

were pleading 
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, impulsive 

and wayward. 
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful perhaps 

of decorum ? 635 

Certainly you can forgive me for speaking so frankly, 

for saying 
What I ought not to have said, yet now I can never 

unsay it ; 
For there are moments in life, when the heart is so 

full of emotion. 
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like 

a pebble 
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and its se- 
cret, 640 



146 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Spilt on the ground like water, can never be gathered 
together. 

Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard you speak of 
Miles Standish, 

Praising his virtues, transforming his very defects into 
virtues, 

Praising his courage and strength, and even his fight- 
ing in Flanders, 

As if by fighting alone you could win the heart of a 
woman, 645 

Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in exalting 
your hero. 

Therefore I spake as 1 did, by an irresistible im- 
pulse. 

You will forgive me, I hope, for the sake of the friend- 
ship between us, 

Which is too true and too sacred to be so easily 
broken ! '* 

Thereupon answered John Alden, the scholar, the 
friend of Miles Standish : eso 

" I was not angry with you, with myself alone I was 
angry. 

Seeing how badly I managed the matter I had in my 
keeping." 

"No ! " interrupted the maiden, with answer prompt 
and decisive ; 

" No ; you were angry with me, for speaking so 
frankly and freely. 

It was wrong, I acknowledge ; for it is the fate of a 
woman 655 

Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost 
that is speechless, 

Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its 
silence. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 147 

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering women 
Sunless and silent and deep, like subterranean rivers 
Running through caverns of darkness, unheard, un- 
seen, and unfruitful, eeo 
Chafing their channels of stone, with endless and pro- 
fitless murmurs." 
Thereupon answered John Alden, the young man, the 

lover of women : 
" Heaven forbid it, Priscilla ; and truly they seem to 

me always 
More like the beautiful rivers that watered the garden 

of Eden, 
More like the river Euphrates, through deserts of 

Havilah flowing, ees 

Filling the land with delight, and memories sweet of 

the garden ! " 
" Ah, by these words, I can see," again interrupted 

the maiden, 
" How very little you prize me, or care for what I am 

saying. 
When from the depths of my heart, in pain and with 

secret misgiving, 
Frankly I speak to you, asking for sympathy only and 

kindness, 67o 

Straightway you take up my words, that are plain and 

direct and in earnest, 
Turn them away from their meaning, and answer with 

flattering phrases. 
This is not right, is not just, is not true to the best 

that is in you ; 

659. Compare Coleridge, — 

" Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man, 
Dovirn to a sunless sea." 

Vision of Kubla Khan. 



148 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

For I know and esteem you, and feel that your nature 
is noble, 

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal level. 675 

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel it perhaps 
the more keenly 

If you say aught that implies I am only as one among 
many. 

If you make use of those common and complimentary 
phrases 

Most men think so fine, in dealing and speaking with 
women. 

But which women reject as insipid, if not as insult- 
ing." 680 

Mute and amazed was Alden ; and listened and 
looked at Priscilla, 

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more di- 
vine in her beauty. 

He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the cause of 
another, 

Stood there embarrassed and silent, and seeking in 
vain for an answer. 

So the maiden went on, and little divined or im- 
agined 685 

What was at work in his heart, that made him so 
awkward and speechless. 

" Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we 
think, and in all things 

Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred profes- 
sions of friendship. 

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed to declare 
it: 

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to speak with 
you always. 69o 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 149 

So I was hurt at your words, and a little affronted to 

hear you 
Urge me to marry your friend, though he were the 

Captain Miles Standish. 
For I must tell you the truth : much more to me is 

your friendship 
Than all the love he could give, were he twice the 

hero you think him." 
Then she extended her hand, and Alden, who eagerly 

grasped it, 695 

Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were aching and 

bleeding so sorely. 
Healed by the touch of that hand, and he said, with 

a voice full of feeling : 
" Yes, we must ever be friends ; and of all who offer 

you friendship 
Let me be ever the first, the truest, the nearest and 

dearest ! " 

Casting a farewell look at the glimmering sail of 
the Mayflower 700 

Distant, but still in sight, and sinking below the hori- 
zon, 

Homeward together they walked, with a strange, in- 
definite feeling, 

That all the rest had departed and left them alone in 
the desert. 

But, as they went through the fields in the blessing 
and smile of the sunshine. 

Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla said very 
archly : 705 

" Now that our terrible Captain has gone in pursuit 
of the Indians, 

Where he is happier far than he would be command- 
ing a household. 



150 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

You may speak boldly, and tell me of all that hap- 
pened between you, 

When you returned last night, and said how ungrate- 
ful you found me." 

Thereupon answered John Alden, and told her the 
whole of the story, — 710 

Told her his own despair, and the direful wrath of 
Miles Standish. 

Whereat the maiden smiled, and said between laugh- 
ing and earnest, 

" He is a little chimney, and heated hot in a moment ! " 

But as he gently rebuked her, and told her how he had 
suffered, — 

How he had even determined to sail that day in the 
Mayflower, 715 

And had remained for her sake, on hearing the dangers 
that threatened, — 

All her manner was changed, and she said with a fal- 
tering accent, 

" Truly I thank you for this : how good you have been 
to me always ! " 

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward Jerusalem 
journeys. 

Taking three steps in advance, and one reluctantly 
backward, 720 

Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld by pangs of 
contrition ; 

Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet ever advan- 
cing. 

Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holy Land of his 
longings. 

Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld by remorse- 
ful misgivings. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 151 

VII. 
THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH. 

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was marching 

steadily northward, 725 

Winding through forest and swamp, and along the 

trend of the sea-shore, 
All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of his anger 
Burning and crackling within, and the sulphurous 

odor of powder 
Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all the scents 

of the forest. 
Silent and moody he went, and much he revolved his 

discomfort ; 730 

He who was used to success, and to easy victories 

always. 
Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed to scorn by 

a maiden. 
Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the friend whom 

most he had trusted ! 
Ah ! 't was too much to be borne, and he fretted and 

chafed in his armor ! 

" I alone am to blame," he muttered, *' for mine was 

the folly. 735 

What has a rough old soldier, grown grim and gray 

in the harness, 
Used to the camp and its ways, to do with the wooing 

of maidens ? 
'T was but a dream, — let it pass, — let it vanish like 

so many others ! 
What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is 

worthless ; 



152 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw it away, 
and henceforward 740 

Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and wooer of dan- 
gers." 

Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry defeat and dis- 
comfort. 

While he was marching by day or lying at night in 
the forest. 

Looking up at the trees and the constellations beyond 
them. 

After a three days' march he came to an Indian 
encampment 745 

Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and 
the forest ; 

Women at work by the tents, and warriors, horrid 
with war-paint. 

Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking to- 
gether ; 

Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach 
of the white men. 

Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and sabre and 
musket, 750 

Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among 
them advancing. 

Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as 
a present ; 

Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there 
was hatred. 

745. The poet has taken his material for this expedition of 
Standish's from the report in Winslow's Relation of StandisJi's 
Expedition against the Indians of Weymouth, and the breaking up 
of Weston^s Colony at that place, in March, 1623, as given in Dr. 
Young's Chronicles. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 153 

Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, gigantic 

in stature, 
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of 

Bashan ; 755 

One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called 

Wattawamat. 
Round their necks were suspended their knives in 

scabbards of wampum. 
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as 

a needle. 
Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and 

crafty. 
" Welcome, English ! " they said, — these words they 

had learned from the traders 760 

Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer 

for peltries. 
Then in their native tongue they began to parley with 

Standish, 
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend 

of the white man. 
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for mus- 
kets and powder, 
Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the 

plague, in his cellars, 765 

Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red 

man ! 
But when Standish refused, and said he would give 

them the Bible, 
Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and 

to bluster. 
Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of 

the other, 
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to 

the Captain : 770 



154 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the 

Captain, 
Angry is he in his heart ; but the heart of the brave 

Wattawamat 
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a wo- 
man. 
But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven 

by lightning, 
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons \ 

about him, 775 

Shouting, 'Who is there here to fight with the brave 

Wattawamat?'" 
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade 

on his left hand. 
Held it aloft and displayed a woman's face on the 

handle. 
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister 

meaning : 
" I have another at home, with the face of a man on 

the handle ; 780 

By and by they shall marry ; and there will be plenty 

of children ! " 

775. " Among the rest Wituwamat bragged of the excellency 
of his knife. On the end of the handle there was pictured a 
woman's face ; 'but,' said he, ' I have another at home where- 
with I have killed both French and English, and that hath a 
man's face on it, and by and by these two must marry.' Fur- 
ther he said of that knife he there had, Hinnaim nameti, hinnaim 
michen, matta cuts ; that is to say, By and by it should see, and 
by and by it should eat, but not speak. Also Pecksuot, being a 
man of greater stature than the captain, told him, though he 
were a great captain, yet he was but a little man ; and, said he, 
though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and 
courage." Winslow's Relation. The poet turns the whole inci- 
dent of Standish's parley and killing of the Indians into a more 
open and brave piece of conduct than the chronicle admits. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 155 

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self- vaunting, insultiug 

Miles Standish ; 
While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung 

at his bosom, 
DraAving it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, 

as he muttered, 
" By and by it shall see ; it shall eat ; ah, ha ! but 

shall speak not ! tss 

This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent 

to destroy us ! 
He is a little man ; let him go and work with the 

women ! " 

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures 

of Indians 
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the 

forest, 
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their 

bow-strings, 790 

Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of 

their ambush. 
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated 

them smoothly ; 
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days 

of the fathers. 
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt 

and the insult. 
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of 

Thurston de Standish, 795 

Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins 

of his temples. 
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his 

knife from its scabbard, 
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the 

savage 



156 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness 

upon it. 
Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound 

of the war-whoop, soo 

And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of 

December, 
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery 

arrows. 
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud 

came the lightning, 
Out of the lightning thunder ; and death unseen ran 

before it. 
Frightened the savages fled for shelter in swamp and 

in thicket, sos 

Hotly pursued and beset ; but their sachem, the brave 

Wattawamat, 
Fled not ; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had 

a bullet 
Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands 

clutching the greensward, 
Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of 

his fathers. 

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors 
lay, and above them, sio 

Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of 
the white man. 

811. " Hobbamock stood by all this time as a spectator, and 
meddled not, observing how our men demeaned themselves in 
this action. All being here ended, smiling, he brake forth into 
these speeches to the Captain : * Yesterday Pecksuot, bragging 
of his own strength and stature, said, though you were a great 
captain, yet you were but a little man ; but to-day I see you are 
big enough to lay him on the ground.' " Winslow's Relation. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 157 

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain 

of Plymouth : 
" Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his 

strength and his stature, — 
Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little 

man ; but I see now 
Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before 

you ! " 815 

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the 

stalwart Miles Standish. 
"When the tidings thereof were brought to the village 

of Plymouth, 
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wat- 

tawamat 
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once 

was a church and a fortress. 
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and 

took courage. 820 

Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of 

terror. 
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married 

Miles Standish; 
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his 

battles, 
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and re- 
ward of his valor. 

818. " Now was the Captain returned and received with joy, 
the head being brought to the fort, and there set up." Wins- 
low's Relation. The custom of exposing the heads of ofEenders 
in this way was familiar enough to the Plymouth people before 
they left England. As late as the year 1747 the heads of the 
lords who were concerned in the Scot's Rebellion were set up 
over Temple Bar, in London. 



158 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 



VIII. 
THE SPINNING WHEEL. 

Month after montli passed away, and in autumn the 

ships of the merchants 825 

Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn 

for the Pilgrims. 
All in the village was peace ; the men were intent on 

their labors, 
Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and 

with merestead, 
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass 

in the meadows. 
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in 

the forest. sso 

All in the village was peace ; but at times the rumor 

of warfare 
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of 

danger. 
Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring the land 

with his forces. 
Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien ar- 
mies, 
Till his name had become a sound of fear to the 

nations. 835 

825. The poet again has moved the narrative forward, taking 
Standish's return from his expedition as the date from which 
after events are measured. The Anne and the Little James 
came at the beginning of August, 1623. 

828. Mere or meare in Old English is boundary, and mere- 
stead becomes the bounded lot. The first entry in the records 
of Plymouth Colony is an incomplete list of " The Meersteads 
and Garden-plotes of those which came first, layed out, 1620." 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 159 

Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse 
and contrition 

Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate out- 
break, 

Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a 
river, ^ 

Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and 
brackish. 

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new 
habitation, 84o 

Solid, substantial, of timber rough-hewn from the firs 
of the forest. 

Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered 
with rushes ; 

Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were 
of paper, 

Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were ex- 
cluded. 

There too he dug a well, and around it planted an 
orchard : 845 

Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well 
and the orchard. 

843. When the Fortune, which visited the colony in Novem- 
ber, 1621, returned to England, Edward Winslow wrote by it a 
letter of advice to those who were thinking of emigrating to 
America, in which he says, "Bring paper and linseed oil for 
your windows." Glass windows were long considered a great 
luxury. When the Duke of Northumberland, in Elizabeth's 
time, left Alnwick Castle to come to London for the winter, 
the few glass windows which formed one of the luxuries of the 
castle were carefully taken out and laid away, perhaps carried 
to London to adorn the city residence. 

846. The Alden family still retain John Alden's homestead 
in Duxbury, and the present house is said to stand on the site 
of the one originally built there. 



160 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and 
secure from annoyance, 

Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Al- 
den's allotment 

In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night- 
time 

Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet 
pennyroyal. 85o 

Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet 

would the dreamer 
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the 

house of Priscilla, 
Led by illusions romantic and subtile deceptions of 

fancy. 
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance 

of friendship. 
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls 

of his dwelling ; 855 

Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of 

his garden ; 
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on 

Sunday 
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in 

the Proverbs, — 
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her 

always, 
How all the days of her life she will do him good, and 

not evil, seo 

How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh 

with gladness. 
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth 

the distaff, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 161 

How she is not afraid of the snow for herseK or her 

household, 
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet 

cloth of her weaving ! 

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the 
Autumn, 865 

Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexter- 
ous fingers. 

As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life 
and his fortune. 

After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of 
the spindle. 

" Truly, Priscilla," he said, " when I see you spinning 
and spinning. 

Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of 
others, 870 

Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in 
a moment ; 

You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful 
Spinner." 

Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and 
swifter ; the spindle 

Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short 
in her fingers ; 

While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mis- 
chief, continued : 875 

" You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen 
of Helvetia ; 

She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of 
Southampton, 

872. The legend of Bertha is given with various learning re- 
garding it in a monograph entitled, Bertha die Spinnerin^ by Karl 
Joseph Simrock, Frankfurt, 1853. 



162 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er valley and 

meadow and mountain. 
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to 

her saddle. 
She was so thrifty and good, that her name passed 

into a proverb. sso 

So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel 

shall no longer 
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers 

with music. 
Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was 

in their childhood, 
Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla 

the spinner ! " 
Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan 

maiden, 885 

Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose 

praise was the sweetest. 
Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her 

spinning. 
Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering 

phrases of Alden : 
" Come, you must not be idle ; if I am a pattern for 

housewives. 
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of 

husbands. 890 

Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready 

for knitting ; 
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions h'kve 

changed and the manners. 
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times 

of John Alden ! " 
Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands 

she adjusted, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 163 

He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended 
before him, 895 

She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread 
from his fingers. 

Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of hold- 
ing, 

Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled 
expertly 

Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares — for how could 
she help it ? — 

Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his 
body. 900 

Lo ! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messen- 
ger entered. 

Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the 
village. 

Yes ; Miles Standish was dead ! — an Indian had 
brought them the tidings, — 

Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of 
the battle, 

Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of 
his forces ; 905 

All the town would be burned, and all the people be 
murdered ! 

Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts 
of the hearers. 

Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking 
backward 

Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in 
horror ; 

But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the ar- 
row 910 



164 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, 

and had sundered 
Once and forever the bonds that held him bound as a 

captive, 
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of 

his freedom. 
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he 

was doing, 
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of 

Priscilla, 915 

Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, 

and exclaiming : 
" Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put 

them asunder ! " 

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate 

sources, 
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, 

and pursuing 
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 920 

Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the 

forest ; 
So these lives that had run thus far in separate chan- 
nels, 
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and 

flowing asunder, 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and 

nearer, 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the 

other. 925 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 165 



IX. 

THE WEDDING-DAY. 

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of 
purple and scarlet, 

Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments 
resplendent, 

Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his fore- 
head. 

Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pome- 
granates. 

Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor 
beneath him 930 

Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet 
was a laver ! 

This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puri- 
tan maiden. 

Friends were assembled together ; the Elder and 
Magistrate also 

Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like 
the Law and the Gospel, 

One with the sanction of earth and one with the bless- 
ing of heaven. 935 

Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth 
and of Boaz. 

Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words 
of betrothal. 

Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magis- 
trate's presence, 

927. For a description of the Jewish high-priest and his 
dress, see Exodus, chapter xxviii. 



166 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of 

Holland. 
Fervently then and devoutly, the excellent Elder of 

Plymouth 940 

Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded 

that day in affection, 
Speaking of life and of death, and imploring Divine 

benedictions. 

Lo ! when the service was ended, a form appeared 
on the threshold. 

Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sorrowful 
figure ! 

Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the 
strange apparition? , 945 

Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on 
his shoulder ? 

Is it a phantom of air, — a bodiless, spectral illu- 
sion ? 

Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid 
the betrothal ? 

Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvifed, un- 
welcomed ; 

Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an ex- 
pression 950 

Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart 
hidden beneath them, 

939. " May 12 was the first marriage in this place, which, 
according to the laudable custome of the Low-Cuntries, in which 
they had lived, was thought most requisite to be performed by 
the magistrate, as being a civill thing, upon which many ques- 
tions aboute inheritances doe depende, with other things most 
proper to their coguizans, and most eonsonante to the scripturs, 
Ruth 4, and no wher found in the gospell to be layed on the 
ministers as a part of their office." Bradford's History^ p. 101. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 167 

As when across tliesky the driving rack of the rain 
cloud 

Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its 
brightness. 

Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but 
was silent. 

As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting inten- 
tion. 955 

But when were ended the troth and the prayer and 
the last benediction, 

Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with 
amazement 

Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain 
of Plymouth ! 

Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, 
" Forgive me ! 

I have been angry and hurt, — too long have I cher- 
ished the feeling ; 96o 

I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God ! it 
is ended. 

Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of 
Hugh Standish, 

Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for 
error. 

952, RacJCf a Shaksperian word, used possibly in two senses, 
either as vapor, as in the thirty-third sonnet, — 

" Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
With ugly rack on his celestial face," 

which is plainly the meaning here, or as a light, cirrus cloud, as 
in the Tempest, Act IV. Scene 1 : — 

" And like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind," 

although here, also, the meaning of vapor might be admissible. 
Bacon has defined rack : "The winds, which wave the clouds 
above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass 
without noise." 



168 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend 

of John Alden." 
Thereupon answered the bridegroom ; " Let all be 

forgotten between us, — 965 

All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow 

older and dearer ! " 
Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Pris- 

cilla, 
Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry 

in England, 
Something of camp and of court, of town and of 

country, commingled. 
Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding 

her husband. 970 

Then he said with a smile : " I should have remem- 
bered the adage, — 
If you would be well served, you must serve yourself ; 

and moreover, 
No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of 

Christmas ! " 

Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet 
their rejoicing, 

Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their 
Captain, 975 

Whom they had mourned as dead ; and they gathered 
and crowded about him. 

Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and 
of bridegroom. 

Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupt- 
ing the other, 

Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpow- 
ered and bewildered, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDI SH. 169 

He had rather by far break into an Indian encamp- 
ment, 980 

Than come again to a wedding to which he had not 
been invited. 

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood 
with the bride at the doorway, 

Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beauti- 
ful morning. 

Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in 
the sunshine, 

Lay extended before them the land of toil and priva- 
tion ; 985 

There were the graves of the dead, and the barren 
waste of the sea-shore. 

There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the 
meadows ; 

But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Gar- 
den of Eden, 

Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the 
sound of the ocean. 

Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and 

stir of departure, 990 

Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient 

of longer delaying, 
Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was 

left uncompleted. 
Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of 

wonder, 
Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud 

of Priscilla, 
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of 

its master, 995 



170 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nos- 
trils, 

Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for 
a saddle. 

She should not walk, he said, through the dust and 
heat of the noonday ; 

Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like 
a peasant. 

Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the 
others, looo 

Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand 
of her husband, 

Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her pal- 
frey. 

" Nothing is wanting now," he said with a smile, " but 
the distaff ; 

Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful 
Bertha ! " 

Onward the bridal procession now moved to their 
new habitation, loos 

Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing to- 
gether. 

Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the 
ford in the forest. 

Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of 
love through its bosom. 

Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths of the 
azure abysses. 

Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring 
his splendors, loio 

Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above 
them suspended. 

Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the 
pine and the fir-tree. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 171 

Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley 
of Eshcol. 

Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral 
ages, 

Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Re- 
becca and Isaac, 1015 

Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful 
always, 

Love immortal and young in the endless succession of 
lovers. 

So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the 
bridal procession. 



[Miles Standish was not inconsolable. In the Fortune came a 
certain Barbara, whose last name is unknown, whom Standish 
married. He had six children, and many of his descendants are 
living.] 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 

[The form of this poem was perhaps suggested by Schiller's 
Song of the Belly which, tracing the history of a bell from the 
first finding of the metal to the hanging of the bell in the tower, 
so mingles the history of human life with it that the Bell be- 
comes the symbol of humanity. Schiller's poem introduced a 
new artistic form which has since been copied more than once, 
but nowhere so successfully as in The Building of the Ship. The 
changes in the measure mark the quickening or retarding of the 
thought. The reader will be interested in watching these changes 
and observing the fitness with which the short lines express the 
quicker, more sudden, or hurried action, while the longer ones 
indicate lingering, moderate action or reflection. The Building 
of the Ship is the first in a series of poems collected under the 
general title, By the Seaside, and published in a volume entitled, 
The Seaside and the Fireside, Boston, 1850.] 



" Build me straight, O worthy Master I 
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
That shall laugh at all disaster, 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! " 

The merchant's word s 

Delighted the Master heard ; 
For his heart was in his work, and the heart 
Giveth grace unto every Art. 

A quiet smile played round his lips, 

As the eddies and dimples of the tide w 

Play round the bows of ships, 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 173 

That steadily at anchor ride. 

And with a voice that was full of glee, 

He answered, " Ere long we will launch 

A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch, is 

As ever weathered a wintry sea! " 

And first with nicest skill and art. 

Perfect and finished in every part, 

A little model the Master wrought. 

Which should be to the larger plan 20 

What the child is to the man. 

Its counterpart in miniature ; 

That with a hand more swift and sure 

The greater labor might be brought 

To answer to his inward thought. 25 

And as he labored, his mind ran o'er 

The various ships that were built of yore, 

And above them all, and strangest of all. 

Towered the Great Harry, crank and tall, 

29. The Great Harry was a famous ship built for the English 
navy in the reign of King Henry YII. Henry found the small 
navy left by Edward TV. in a very weak condition, and he under- 
took to reconstruct it. The most famous ship in Edward's navy 
was named Grace k Dieu and Henry named his Harry Grace a 
Dieu, but she was more generally known as the Great Harry. 
On the accession of Henry VIII. her name was changed to the 
Regent, but when a . few years afterward she was burnt in an 
engagement with the French, the ship built in her place resumed 
the old name and became a second Great Harry. It was this 
ship that the poet describes. She was a thousand tons burden, 
which was regarded as an immense size in those days, and her 
crew and armanent were out of all proportion, as we should think 
now. She carried seven hundred men, and a hundred and twenty- 
two guns, but of these most were very small. Thirty-four were 
eighteen pounders, and were called culverins. There were also 
demi-culverins, or nine pounders, while the rest only carried one 
or two pounds and were variously named falcons, falconets, ser- 
pentines, sabinets. 



174 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Whose picture was hanging on the wall, 30 

With bows and stern raised high in air, 

And balconies hanging here and there, 

And signal lanterns and flags afloat, 

And eight round towers, like those that frown 

From some old castle, looking down 35 

Upon the drawbridge and the moat. 

And he said with a smile, " Our ship, I wis, 

Shall be of another form than this ! " 

It was of another form, indeed ; 

Built for freight, and yet for speed, 40 

A beautiful and gallant craft ; 

Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast. 

Pressing down upon sail and mast. 

Might not the sharp bows overwhelm ; 

Broad in the beam, but sloping aft 45 

With graceful curve and slow degrees, 

That she might be docile to the helm. 

And that the currents of parted seas, 

Closing behind, with mighty force. 

Might aid and not impede her course. 50 

In the ship-yard stood the Master, 

With the model of the vessel. 
That should laugh at all disaster. 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle I 

Covering many a rood of ground, 55 

Lay the timber piled around ; 

Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak, 

And scattered here and there, with these, 

The knarred and crooked cedar knees ; 

Brought from regions far away, eo 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 175 

From Pascagoula's sunny bay, 

And the banks of the roaring Roanoke ! 

Ah ! what a wondrous thing it is 

To note how many wheels of toil 

One thought, one word, can set in motion ! 65 

There 's not a ship that sails the ocean. 

But every climate, every soil. 

Must bring its tribute, great or small, 

And help to build the wooden wall ! 

The sun was rising o'er the sea, 70 

And long the level shadows lay, 

As if they, too, the beams would be 

Of some great, airy argosy. 

Framed and launched in a single day. 

That silent architect, the sun, 75 

Had hewn and laid them every one, 

69. The wooden wall is of course the ship. The reference is 
to a proverbial expression of very ancient date. When the 
Greeks sent to Delphi to ask how they were to defend them- 
selves against Xerxes, who had invaded their country, the oracle 
replied : — 

" Pallas hath urged, and Zeus the sire of all 
Hath safety promised in a wooden wall ; 
Seed-time and harvest, weeping sires shall teU 
How thousands fought at Salamis and fell." 

The Greeks interpreted this as a caution to trust in their navy, 
and the battle at Salamis resulted in the overthrow of the Per- 
sians and discomfiture of their fleet. 

73. A richly freighted ship. The word is formed from Argo, 

the name of the fabled ship which brought back the golden fleece 

from Colchis. Shakespeare uses the word : as in The Taming 

of the Shrew : — 

" That she shall have ; besides an argosy 
That now is lying in Marseilles' road." 

Act n. Scene 1. 
And in The Merchant of Venice : — 

" He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies ; I understand, 
moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England." 

Act I. Scene 3. 



176 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Ere the work of man was yet begun. 

Beside the Master, when he spoke, 

A youth, against an anchor leaning. 

Listened, to catch his slightest meaning. so 

Only the long waves, as they broke 

In ripples on the pebbly beach. 

Interrupted the old man's speech. 

Beautiful they were, in sooth, 

The old man and the fiery youth ! 85 

The old man, in whose busy brain 
Many a ship that sailed the main 
Was modelled o'er and o'er again ; — 
The fiery youth, who was to be 
The heir of his dexterity, so 

The heir of his house, and his daughter's hand, 
When he had built and launched from land 
What the elder head had planned. 
" Thus," said he, " will we build this ship ! 
Lay square the blocks upon the slip, 95 

And follow well this plan of mine. 

87. The main is the great ocean as distinguished from the 
bays, gulfs, and inlets. Curiously enough, it means also the 
main-land, and was used in both senses by Elizabethan writers. 
In King LeaVy Act III. Scene 1 : — 

" Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, 
Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main " — 

some commentators take main to be the main-land, but a better 

sense seems to refer it to the open sea when a storm is raging. 

Yet the name of Spanish Main was given to the northern coast 

of South America when that country was taken possession of by 

Spain. 

95. The slip is the inclined bank on which the ship is built. A 

similar meaning attaches to the use of the word locally in New 

York, where Peck Slip, Coenties Slip, Burling Slip, originally 

denoted the inclined openings between wharves. 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. Ill 

Choose tlie timbers with greatest care ; 

Of all that is unsound beware ; 

For only what is sound and strong 

To this vessel shall belong. loo 

Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine 

Here together shall combine. 

A goodly frame, and a goodly fame, 

And the Union be her name ! 

For the day that gives her to the sea 105 

Shall give my daughter unto thee ! " 

The Master's word 

Enraptured the young man heard ; 

And as he turned his face aside, 

With a look of joy and a thrill of pride, no 

Standing before 

Her father's door. 

He saw the form of his promised bride. 

The sun shone on her golden hair. 

And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair, n5 

With the breath of morn and the soft sea air. 

Like a beauteous barge was she, 

Still at rest on the sandy beach. 

Just beyond the billow's reach ; 

But he 120 

Was the restless, seething, stormy sea ! 

Ah, how skilful grows the hand 
That obeyeth Love's command ! 

101. Here, as was noted in Schiller's Song of the Bell,ihQ poet 
touches the ship with a special human interest, and, by his refer- 
ence to Maine cedar and Georgia pine, half reveals the larger 
and wider sense of the building of the ship, which is disclosed at 
the end of the poem. 



178 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

It is the heart, and not the brain, 

That to the highest doth attain, 125 

And he who foUoweth Love's behest 

Far excelleth all the rest ! 

Thus with the rising of the sun 

Was the noble task begun. 

And soon throughout the ship-yard's bounds iso 

Were heard the intermingled sounds 

Of axes and of mallets, plied 

With vigorous arms on every side ; 

Plied so deftly and so well, 

That, ere the shadows of evening fell, 135 

The keel of oak for a noble ship. 

Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong. 

Was lying ready, and stretched along 

The blocks, well placed upon the slip. 

Happy, thrice happy, every one 140 

Who sees his labor well begun. 

And not perplexed and multiplied. 

By idly waiting for time and tide ! 

And when the hot, long day was o'er. 

The young man at the Master's door 145 

Sat with the maiden calm and still. 

And within the porch, a little more 

Removed beyond the evening chill. 

The father sat, and told them tales 

Of wrecks in the great September gales, 150 

Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main, 

And ships that never came back again, 

151. See note to line 87. Here the Spanish Main is used, 
as was most anciently the custom, of the northern coast of South 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP, 179 

The chance and change of a sailor's life, 

Want and plenty, rest and strife. 

His roving fancy, like the wind, 155 

That nothing can stay and nothing can bind. 

And the magic charm of foreign lands. 

With shadows of palms, and shining sands, 

Where the tumbling surf, 

O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar, leo 

Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar, 

As he lies alone and asleep on the turf. 

And the trembling maiden held her breath 

At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea. 

With all its terror and mystery, les 

The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death, 

That divides and yet unites mankind ! 

And whenever the old man paused, a gleam 

From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume 

The silent group in the twilight gloom, 170 

And thoughtful faces, as in a dream ; 

And for a moment one might mark 

What had been hidden by the dark. 

That the head of the maiden lay at rest. 

Tenderly, on the young man's breast ! 175 

Day by day the vessel grew. 

With timbers fashioned strong and true, 

America. This is probably also the sense in The Wreck of the 

Hesperus : — 

" Then up and spake an old Sailor, 
Had sailed to the Spanish Main, 
' I pray thee put into yonder port, 
For I fear a hurricane.' " 

153. " That among all the changes and chances of this mortal 
life, they may ever be defended by Thy most gracious and ready 
help." From a Collect in the Communion office, Book of Com- 
mon Prayer. 



180 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee, 

Till, framed with perfect symmetry, 

A skeleton ship rose up to view ! iso 

And around the bows and along the side 

The heavy hammers and mallets plied, 

Till after many a week, at length, 

Wonderful for form and strength, 

Sublime in its enormous bulk, i85 

Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk ! 

And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing, 

Kose from the boiling, bubbling, seething 

Cauldron, that glowed, 

And overflowed 190 

With the black tar, heated for the sheathing. 

And amid the clamors 

Of clattering hammers. 

He who listened heard now and then 

The song of the Master and his men : — 195 

" Build me straight, O worthy Master, 
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
That shall laugh at all disaster. 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! " 



With oaken brace and copper band, 

Lay the rudder on the sand. 

That, like a thought, should have control 

Over the movement of the whole ; 

And near it the anchor, whose giant hand 

Would reach down and grapple with the land, 

And immovable and fast 

Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast ! 

And at the bows an image stood, 

By a cunning artist carved in wood, 



200 



205 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 181 

With robes of white, that far behind 210 

Seemed to be fluttering in the wind. 

It was not shaped in a classic mould, 

Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old, 

Or Naiad rising from the water. 

But modelled from the Master's daughter I 215 

On many a dreary and misty night, 

'T will be seen by the rays of the signal light. 

Speeding along through the rain and the dark. 

Like a ghost in its snow-white sark. 

The pilot of some phantom bark, 220 

Guiding the vessel, in its flight. 

By a path none other knows aright ! 1 

Behold, at last, 

Each tall and tapering mast 

Is swung into its place ; 225 

214. Strictly speaking, the Naiad was a nymph, the nymphs 
being the inferior order of deities that were supposed to reside 
in different parts of nature, naiads in the sea, dryads in trees, 
oreads in mountains. 

215. Hawthorne has a charming story upon the romance of a 
figure-head in Browne's Wooden Image, in Mosses from an Old 
Manse. 

219. Sarks or shifts were made first of silk, whence the name, 
derived from the Latin sericum, silk. 

225. Mr. Longfellow prints the following note to this and the 
two preceding lines : " I wish to anticipate a criticism on this 
passage by stating that sometimes, though not usually, vessels 
are launched fully rigged and sparred. I have availed myself 
of the exception, as better suited to my purposes than the gen- 
eral rule ; but the reader will see that it is neither a blunder nor 
a poetic license. On this subject a friend in Portland, Maine, 
writes me thus : ' In this State, and also, I am told, in New 
York, ships are sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to 
save time, or to make a show. There was a fine, large ship 
launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully rigged and sparred. 
Some years ago a ship was launched here, with her rigging, 



182 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shrouds and stays 
Holding it firm and fast ! 

Long ago, 

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine, 

When upon mountain and plain 230 

Lay the snow, 

They fell, — those lordly pines ! 

Those grand, majestic pines ! 

'Mid shouts and cheers 

The jaded steers, 235 

Panting beneath the goad, 

Dragged down the weary, winding road 

Those captive kings so straight and tall, 

To be shorn of their streaming hair, 

And, naked and bare, 240 

To feel the stress and the strain 

Of the wind and the reeling main, 

Whose roar 

Would remind them forevermore 

Of their native forests they should not see again. 245 

And everywhere 

The slender, graceful spars 

Poise aloft in the air, 

And at the mast-head. 

White, blue, and red, 250 

A flag unrolls the stripes and stars. 

Ah ! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless, 

In foreign harbors shall behold 

That flag unrolled, 

'T will be as a friendly hand 255 

spars, sails, and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day and was 
never heard of again ! I hope this will not be the fate of your 



poem 



I ' " 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 183 

Stretched out from his native land, 

Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless ! 

All is finished ! and at length 

Has come the bridal day 

Of beauty and of strength. zeo 

To-day the vessel shall be launched I 

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 

And o'er the bay, 

Slowly, in all his splendors dight. 

The great sun rises to behold the sight. 265 

The ocean old, 

Centuries old, 

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 

Paces restless to and fro, 

Up and down the sands of gold. 270 

His beating heart is not at rest ; 

And far and wide. 

With ceaseless flow. 

His beard of snow 

Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 275 

He waits impatient for his bride. 

There she stands. 

With her foot upon the sands. 

Decked with flags and streamers gay. 

In honor of her marriage day, 280 

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending, 

Round her like a veil descending. 

Ready to be 

The bride of the gray old sea. 

"266. This and the next eighteen lines illustrate well the skill 
with which the poet changes the length of the lines to denote an 
impatient, abrupt, and as it were short breathing movement. 



184 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

On the deck another bride 285 

Is standing by her lover's side. 

Shadows from the flags and shrouds, 

Like the shadows cast by clouds, 

Broken by many a sunny fleck, 

Fall around them on the deck. 290 

The prayer is said, 
The service read. 

The joyous bridegroom bows his head ; 
And in tears the good old Master 
Shakes the brown hand of his son, 295 

Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek 
In silence, for he cannot speak, 
And ever faster 

Down his own the tears begin to run. 
The worthy pastor — 300 

The shepherd of that wandering flock, 
That has the ocean for its wold. 
That has the vessel for its fold, 
Leaping ever from rock to rock — 
Spake, with accents mild and clear, 305 

Words of warning, words of cheer, 
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear. 
He knew the chart 
Of the sailor's heart, 

All its pleasures and its griefs, 310 

All its shallows and rocky reefs. 
All those secret currents, that flow 
With such resistless undertow. 
And lift and drift, with terrible force. 
The will from its moorings and its course. 315 

Therefore he spake, and thus said he : — 
" Like unto ships far off at sea, 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 185 

Outward or homeward bound, are we. 

Before, behind, and all around, 

Floats and swings the horizon's bound, 320 

Seems at its distant rim to rise 

And climb the crystal wall of the skies. 

And then again to turn and sink. 

As if we could slide from its outer brink. 

Ah ! it is not the sea, 325 

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, 

But ourselves 

That rock and rise 

With endless and uneasy motion. 

Now touching the very skies, 330 

Now sinking into the depths of ocean. 

Ah ! if our souls but poise and swing 

Like the compass in its brazen ring. 

Ever level and ever true 

To the toil and the task we have to do, 335 

We shall sail securely, and safely reach 

The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach 

The sights we see, and the sounds we hear, 

Will be those of joy and not of fear ! " 

Then the Master, 340 

With a gesture of command. 

Waved his hand ; 

And at the word. 

Loud and sudden there was heard, 

All around them and below, 345 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 

337. The Fortunate Isles, or Isles of the Blest, were imagi- 
nary islands in the West, in classic mythology, set in a sea 
which was warmed by the rays of the declining sun. Thither 
the favorites of the gods were borne, to dwell in endless joy. 



186 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Knocking away the shores and spurs. 

And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 

The thrill of life along her keel, 350 

And, spurning with her foot the ground, 

With one exulting, joyous bound. 

She leaps into the ocean's arms ! 

And lo ! from the assembled crowd 
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 355 

That to the ocean seemed to say, 
" Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray. 
Take her to thy protecting arms. 
With all her youth and all her charms ! " 

How beautiful she is ! How fair 360 

She lies within those arms, that press 

Her form with many a soft caress 

Of tenderness and watchful care I 

Sail forth into the sea, O ship ! 

Through wind and wave, right onward steer ! 365 

The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 

Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

Sail forth into the sea of life, 

O gentle, loving, trusting wife. 

And safe from all adversity 370 

Upon the bosom of that sea 

Thy comings and thy goings be ! 

For gentleness and love and trust 

Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ; 

And in the wreck of noble lives 375 

Something immortal still survives ! 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 187 

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, m 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

We know what Master laid thy keel. 

What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel. 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 385 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 

'T is of the wave and not the rock ; 

'T is but the flapping of the sail, 390 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 

In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 395 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 

393. The reference is to the treacherous display, by wreck- 
ers, of lights upon a dangerous coast, to attract vessels in a 
storm, that they may be wrecked and become the spoil of the 
thieves. 

398. The closing lines gather into strong verses, like a choral, 
the cumulative meaning of the poem, which builds upon the ma- 
terial structure of the ship, the fancy of the bridal of sea and 
ship, the domestic life of man and the national life. 



[Mr. Noah Brooks, in his paper on Lincoln^ s Imagination 
(Scribner^s Monthly, August, 1879), mentions that he found the 
President one day attracted by these closing stanzas, which were 



188 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

quoted in a political speech : " Knowing the whole poem," he 
adds, " as one of my early exercises in recitation, I began, at his 
request, with the description of the launch of the ship, and re- 
peated it to the end. As he listened to the last lines [395-398], 
his eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did not 
speak for some minutes, but finally said, with simplicity : * It 
is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that.' "] 



JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIER. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, of Quaker birth in Puri- 
tan surroundings, was born at the homestead near Haver- 
hill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807. Until his eigh- 
teenth year he lived at home, working upon the farm and in 
the little shoemaker's shop which nearly every farm then had 
as a resource in the otherwise idle hours of winter. The 
manual, homely labor upon which he was employed was in 
part the foundation of that deep interest which the poet 
never has ceased to take in the toil and plain fortunes of the 
people. Throughout his poetry runs this golden thread of 
sympathy with honorable labor and enforced poverty, and 
many poems are directly inspired by it. While at work 
with his father he sent poems to the Haverhill Gazette, and 
that he was not in subjection to his work is very evident by 
the fact that he translated it and similar occupations into 
Songs of Labor. He had two years' academic training, and 
in 1829 became editor in Boston of the American Manu- 
facturer^ a paper published in the interest of the tariff. In 
1831 he published his Legends of New England, prose 
sketches in a department of literature which has always 
had strong claims upon his interest. No American writer, 
unless Irving be excepted, has done so much to throw a 
graceful veil of poetry and legend over the country of his 
daily life. Essex County, in Massachusetts, and the beaches 
lying between Newburyport and Portsmouth blossom with 
flowers of Whittier's planting. He has made rare use of 



190 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

the homely stories which he had heard in his childhood, and 
learned afterward from familiar intercourse with country- 
people, and he has himself used invention delicately and in 
harmony with the spirit of the New England coast. Al- 
though of a body of men who in earlier days had been perse- 
cuted by the Puritans of New England, his generous mind 
has not failed to detect all the good that was in the stern 
creed and life of the persecutors, and to bring it forward into 
the light of his poetry. 

In 1836 he published Mogg Megone, a poem which stood 
first in the collected edition of his poems issued in 1857, and 
was admitted there with some reluctance by the author, who 
placed it in an appendix when he made his final Riverside 
edition in 1888. In that and the Bridal of Pennacook he 
draws his material from the relation held between the Indi- 
ans and the settlers. His sympathy was always with the 
persecuted and oppressed, and while historically he found 
an object of pity and self-reproach in the Indian, his pro- 
foundest compassion and most stirring indignation were 
called out by African slavery. From the earliest he was 
upon the side of the abolition party. Year after year 
poems fell from his pen in which with all the eloquence of 
his nature he sought to enlist his countrymen upon the side 
of emancipation and freedom. It is not too much to say 
that in the slow development of public sentiment Whittier's 
steady song was one of the most powerful advocates that 
the slave had, all the more powerful that it was free from 
malignity or unjust accusation. 

Whittier's poems have been issued in a number of small 
volumes, and collected into single larger volumes. Besides 
those already indicated, there are a number which owe their 
origin to his tender regard for domestic life and the simple 
experience of the men and women about him. Of these 
Snow-Bound is the most memorable. Then his fondness for 
a story has led him to use the ballad form in many cases, 
and Mabel Martin is one of a number, in which the narra- 
tive is blended with a fine and strong charity. The catholic 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 191 

mind of this writer and his instinct for discovering the pure 
moral in human action are disclosed by a number of poems, 
drawn from a wide range of historical fact, dealing with a 
great variety of religious faiths and circumstances of life, 
but always pointing to some sweet and strong truth of the 
divine life. Of such are The Brother of Mercy, The Gift of 
Tritemius, The Two Mabbis, and others. Whittier's Prose 
Works are comprised in three volumes, and consist mainly 
of his contributions to journals and of Leaves from Mar- 
garet Smith's Journal, a fictitious diary of a visitor to New 
England in 1678. His complete works are published in 
seven volumes, four devoted to poetry and three to prose. 



SNOW-BOUND. 

A WINTER IDYL. 

" As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so good 
Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the 
Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire : 
and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this 
our Fire of Wood doth the same." — CoR. Agrippa, Occult 
Philosophy, Book I. ch. v. 

" Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emebson, The Snow-Storm. 

The sun that brief December day 

Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 

And, darkly circled, gave at noon 

A sadder light than waning moon. 

Slow tracing down the thickening sky s 

Its mute and ominous prophecy, 

A portent seeming less than threat, 

It sank from sight before it set. 

A chill no coat, however stout. 

Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, lo 



SNOW-BOUND. 193 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 

The coming of the snow-storm told. 

The wind blew east ; we heard the roar is 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore. 

And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 

Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 

Brought in the wood from out of doors, 20 

Littered the stalls, and from the mows 

Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows : 

Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; 

And, sharply clashing horn on horn. 

Impatient down the stanchion rows 25 

The cattle shake their walnut bows ; 

While, peering from his early perch 

Upon the scaffold's pole of birch. 

The cock his crested helmet bent 

And down his querulous challenge sent. so 

Un warmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag wavering to and fro 35 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame. 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 40 

So all night long the storm roared on : 
The morning broke without a sun ; 



194 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

In tiny spherule traced with lines 

Of Nature's geometric signs, 

In starry flake and pellicle 46 

All day the hoary meteor fell ; 

And, when the second morning shone, 

We looked upon a world unknown. 

On nothing we could call our own. 

Around the glistening wonder bent so 

The blue walls of the firmament, 

No cloud above, no earth below, — 

A universe of sky and snow ! 

The old familiar sights of ours 

Took marvellous shapes ; strange domes and towers 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 56 

Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; 

A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed, 

A fenceless drift what once was road ; 

The bridle-post an old man sat 60 

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat ; 

The well-curb had a Chinese roof ; 

And even the long sweep, high aloof. 

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 

Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 65 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! '* 

65. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy, which inclines from 
the perpendicular a little more than six feet in eighty, is a cam- 
panile, or bell-tower, built of white marble, very beautiful, but 
so famous for its singular deflection from perpendicularity as to 
be known almost wholly as a curiosity. Opinions differ as to 
the leaning being the result of accident or design, but the better 
judgment makes it an effect of the character of the soil on 
which it is built. The Cathedral to which it belongs has suf- 
fered so much from a similar cause that there is not a vertical 
line in it. 



SNOW-BOUND. 195 

Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy 

Count such a summons less than joy ?) 

Our buskins on our feet we drew ; 70 

With mittened hands, and caps drawn low 
To guard our necks and ears from snow, 

We cut the solid whiteness through. 

And, where the drift was deepest, made 

A tunnel walled and overlaid 75 

With dazzling crystal : we had read 

Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, 

And to our own his name we gave, 

With many a \^ash the luck were ours 

To test his lamp's supernal powers. so 

We reached the barn with merry din, 

And roused the prisoned brutes within. 

The old horse thrust his long head out, 

And grave with wonder gazed about ; 

The cock his lusty greeting said, 85 

And forth his speckled harem led ; 

The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 

And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 

The horned patriarch of the sheep. 

Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, so 

Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 

And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 

The loosening drift its breath before; 

Low circling round its southern zone, 95 

The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 

No church-bell lent its Christian tone 

90. Amun, or Ammon, was an Egyptian being, representing 
an attribute of Deity under the form of a ram. 



196 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER, 

To the savage air, no social smoke 

Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. 

A solitude made more intense loo 

By dreary-voiced elements, 

The shrieking of the mindless wind. 

The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 

And on the glass the unmeaning beat 

Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. i05 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 

No welcome sound of toil or mirth 

Unbound the spell, and testified 

Of human life and thought outside. 

We minded that the sharpest ear no 

The buried brooklet could not hear, 

The music of whose liquid lip 

Had been to us companionship. 

And, in our lonely life, had grown 

To have an almost human tone. 115 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 

Of wooded knolls that ridged the west. 

The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 

From sight beneath the smothering bank, 

We piled with care our nightly stack 120 

Of wood against the chimney-back, — 

The oaken log, green, huge, and thick. 

And on its top the stout back-stick ; 

The knotty forestick laid apart, 

And filled between with curious art 125 

The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 

We watched the first red blaze appear. 

Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 

On whitewashed wall and sagging beam. 

Until the old, rude-furnished room 130 



SNOW-BOUND, 197 

Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 

While radiant with a mimic flame 

Outside the sparkling drift became. 

And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 

Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 136 

The crane and pendent trammels showed. 

The Turk's heads on the andirons glowed ; 

While childish fancy, prompt to tell 

The meaning of the miracle. 

Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the tree uo 

When Jive outdoors hums merrily^ 

There the witches are malcing teaJ^ 

The moon above the eastern wood 

Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 

Transfigured in the silver flood, 145 

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen. 

Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 

Took shadow, or the sombre green 

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 

Against the whiteness at their back. iso 

For such a world and such a night 

Most fitting that unwarming light. 

Which only seemed where'er it fell 

To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 155 

We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 

Content to let the north-wind roar 

In baffled rage at pane and door, 

While the red logs before us beat 

The frost-line back with tropic heat ; I60 

And ever, when a louder blast 

Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 



198 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER. 

The merrier up its roaring draught 

The great throat of the chimney laughed, 

The house-dog on his paws outspread les 

Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 

And, for the winter fireside meet, 

Between the andirons' straddling feet, i7o 

The mug of cider simmered slow. 

The apples sputtered in a row, 

And, close at hand, the basket stood 

With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? ns 

What matter how the north-wind raved ? 

Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 

Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 

O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 

As was my sire's that winter daj?", iso 

How strange it seems, with so much gone 

Of life and love, to still live on ! 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou 

Are left of all that circle now, — 

The dear home faces whereupon iss 

That fitful firelight paled and shone. 

Henceforward, listen as we will, 

The voices of that hearth are still ; 

Look where we may, the wide earth o'er. 

Those lighted faces smile no more. 190 

We tread the paths their feet have worn. 
We sit beneath their orchard trees, 
We hear, like them, the hum of bees 

And rustle of the bladed corn ; 

We turn the pages that they read, iss 



SNOW-BOUND. 199 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 
Yet Love will dream and Faith will trust 200 

(Since He who knows our need is just) 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees I 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 205 

Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith. 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown^ 
That Life is ever lord of Death, 210 

And Love can never lose its own ! 

We sped the time with stories old. 

Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told. 

Or stammered from our school-book lore 

" The chief of Gambia's golden shore." 215 

How often since, when all the land 

Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, 

As if a far-blown trumpet stirred 

The languorous sin-sick air, I heard : 

^'Does not the voice of reason cry^ 220 

Claim the first right which Nature gave. 
From the red scourge of bondage fly ^ 

Nor. deign to live a burdened slave ! " 
Our father rode again his ride 

215. The first line of one of the stanzas in a poem entitled 
Tlie African Chief, written by Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton, 
wife of a former attorney-general of Massachusetts. The school- 
book in which it was printed was Caleb Bingham's The Ameri- 
can Preceptor. 



200 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER. 

On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 225 

Sat down again to moose and samp 

In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 

Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 

Beneath St. Fran(jois' hemlock-trees; 

Again for him the moonlight shone 2so 

On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 

Again he heard the violin play 

Which led the village dance away, 

And mingled in its merry whirl 

The grandam and the laughing girl. 235 

Or, nearer home, our steps he led 

Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 

Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 

Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 240 

The low green prairies of the sea. 

We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
The hake-broil on the driftwood coals ; 

The chowder on the sand-beach made, 245 

Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot. 

With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 

We heard the tales of witchcraft old. 

And dream and sign and marvel told 

To sleepy listeners as they lay 250 

Stretched idly on the salted hay, 

Adrift along the winding shores. 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow, 

And idle lay the useless oars. 255 

Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking heel, 



SNOW-BOUND, 201 

Told how the Indian hordes came down 

At midnight on Cochecho town, 

And how her own great-uncle bore 260 

His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 

Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 

So rich and picturesque and free 

(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways), 265 

The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome to her home ; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 270 

The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country-side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 

The loon's weird laughter far away ; 275 

We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down. 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 280 

The duck's black squadron anchored lay. 
And heard the wild geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 
Then, haply, with a look more grave. 
And soberer tone, some tale she gave 235 

From painful Sewel's ancient tome, 

259. Dover in New Hampshire. 

286. William Sewel was the historian of the Quakers. Charles 
Lamb seemed to have as good an opinion of the book as Whit- 
tier. In his essay A Quakers' Meeting, in Essays of Elia, he says : 
" Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, 1 would recommend 



202 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Beloved in every Quaker home, 

Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, 

Or Chalkley's Journal, old and quaint, — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 290 

Who, when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed. 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence, mad for food. 

With dark hints muttered under breath 295 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's History of the 
Quakers. ... It is far more edifying and affecting than any- 
thing you will read of Wesley or his colleagues." 

289. Thomas Chalkley was an Englishman of Quaker parent- 
age, born in 1675, who travelled extensively as a preacher, and 
finally made his home in Philadelphia. He died in 1749 ; his 
Journal was first published in 1747. His own narrative of the 
incident which the poet relates is as follows : " To stop their mur- 
muring, I told them they should not need to cast lots, which was 
usual in such cases, which of us should die first, for I would freely 
offer up my life to do them good. One said, ' God bless you ! 
I will not eat any of you.' Another said, ' He would rather die 
before he would eat any of me ; ' and so said several. I can 
truly say, on that occasion, at that time, my life was not dear to 
me, and that I was serious and ingenuous in my proposition : and 
as I was leaning over the side of the vessel, thoughtfully consid- 
ering my proposal to the company, and looking in my mind to 
Him that made me, a very large dolphin came up towards the 
top or surface of the water, and looked me in the face ; and I 
called the people to put a hook into the sea, and take liim, for 
here is one come to redeem me (I said to them). And they put 
a hook into the sea, and the fish readily took it, and they caught 
him. He was longer than myself. I think he was about six 
feet long, and the largest that ever I saw. This plainly showed 
us that we ought not to distrust the providence of the Almighty. 
The people were quieted by this act of Providence, and mur- 
mured no more. We caught enough to eat plentifully of, till we 
got into the capes of Delaware." 



SNOW-BOUND. 203 

Offered, if Heaven withlield supplies. 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, aoo 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise flashed in view. 

"Take, eat," he said, "and be content; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 305 

To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. fflo 

In moons and tides and weather Avise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 

By many an occult hint and sign. 

Holding the cunning- warded keys 315 

To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 

Himself to Nature's heart so near 

That all her voices in his ear 

Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 

Like ApoUonius of old, 320 

Who knew the tales the sparrows told. 

Or Hermes, who interpreted 

310. The measure requires the accent ly'ceum, but in stricter 
use the accent is lyce'um. 

320. A philosopher born in the first century of the Christian 
era, of whom many strange stories were told, especially regard- 
ing his converse with birds and animals. 

322. Hermes Trismegistus, a celebrated Egyptian priest and 
philosopher, to whom was attributed the revival of geometry, 
arithmetic, and art among the Egyptians. He was little later 
than ApoUonius. 



204 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

What the sage cranes of Nilus said ; 

Content to live where life began ; 

A simple, guileless, childlike man, 325 

Strong only on his native grounds, 

The little world of sights and sounds 

Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 

Whereof his fondly partial pride 

The common features magnified, 330 

As Surrey hills to mountains grew 

In White of Selborne's loving view, — - 

He told how teal and loon he shot, 

And how the eagle's eggs he got. 

The feats on pond and river done, 835 

The prodigies of rod and gun ; 

Till, warming with the tales he told, 

Forgotten was the outside cold. 

The bitter wind unheeded blew. 

From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 340 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the mink 

Went fishing down the river-brink. 

In fields with bean or clover gay. 

The woodchuck, like a hermit gray. 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 345 

The muskrat plied the mason's trade. 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 350 

And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 

332. Gilbert White, of Selboriie, England, was a clergyman 
who wrote the Natural History of Selborne, a minute, affection- 
ate, and charming description of what could be seen, as it were, 
from his own doorstep. The accuracy of his observation and the 
delightfulness of his manner have kept the book a classic. 



SNOW-BOUND. 205 

The sweetest woman ever Fate 

Perverse denied a household mate, 

Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 

Found peace in love's unselfishness, 355 

And welcome whereso'er she went, 

A calm and gracious element, 

Whose presence seemed the sweet income 

And womanly atmosphere of home, — 

Called up her girlhood memories, 36o 

The huskings and the apple-bees. 

The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 

Weaving through all the poor details 

And homespun warp of circumstance 

A golden woof -thread of romance. aes 

For well she kept her genial mood 

And simple faith of maidenhood ; 

Before her still a cloud-land lay. 

The mirage loomed across her way ; 

The morning dew, that dries so soon 370 

With others, glistened at her noon ; 

Through years of toil and soil and care, 

From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 

All unprofaned she held apart 

The virgin fancies of the heart. 375 

Be shame to him of woman born 

Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 

Her evening task the stand beside ; 

A full, rich nature, free to trust, sso 

Truthful and almost sternly just, 

Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. 

And make her generous thought a fact, 

Keeping with many a light disguise 



206 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER. 

The secret of self-sacrifice. 885 

heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 

How many a poor one's blessing vt^ent 
With thee beneath the low green tent 390 

Whose curtain never outward swings ! 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 395 

Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 

Now bathed in the unfading green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 400 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms. 
Do those large eyes behold me still? 
With me one little year ago : — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 405 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 

1 tread the pleasant paths we trod, 

I see the violet-sprinkled sod, flo 

Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 

The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 

Yet following me where'er I went 

With dark eyes full of love's content. 

The birds are glad ; the brier-rose fills 4i5 

396. Elizabeth H, Whittier, a number of whose poems were 
collected by her brother and added to one of his own volumes. 



SNOW-BOUND. 207 

The air with sweetness ; all the hills 

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 

But still I wait with ear and eye 

For something gone which should be nigh, 

A loss in all familiar things, 420 

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 

And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee. 

Am I not richer than of old? 
Safe in thy immortality, 

What change can reach the wealth I hold ? 425 

What chance can mar the pearl and gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
And while in life's late afternoon. 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 430 

Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are ; 
And when the sunset gates unbar. 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 435 

And, white against the evening star. 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule. 

The master of the district school 

Held at the fire his favored place ; 440 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat. 

Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 445 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college haUs. 

Born the wild Northern hills among, 



208 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 

By patient toil subsistence scant, 450 

Not competence and yet not want, 

He early gained the power to pay 

His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town ; 455 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach, 

Where all the droll experience found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round, 

The moonlit skater's keen delight, 460 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night. 

The rustic party, with its rough 

Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 

And whirling plate, and forfeits paid. 

His winter task a pastime made. 465 

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 

He tuned his merry violin, 

Or played the athlete in the barn, 

Or held the good dame's winding yarn, 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 470 

Of classic legends rare and old, 

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 

Had all the commonplace of home, 

And little seemed at best the odds 

'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 475 

Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 

The guise of any grist-mill brook. 

And dread Olympus at his will 

476. Pindus is the mountain chain which, running from north 
to south, nearly bisects Greece. Five rivers take their rise from 
the central peak, the Aous, the Arachthus, the Haliacmon, the 
Peneus, and the Achelous. 



SNOW-BOUND. 209 

Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed ; 480 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisety schemed, 

And hostage from the future took 

In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed, — of such as he 485 

Shall Freedom's young apostles be. 
Who, following in War's bloody trail. 
Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike ; 490 

Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance. 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth. 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous growth, 
Made murder pastime, and the hell 495 

Of prison-torture possible ; 
The cruel lie of caste refute. 
Old forms remould, and substitute 
For Slavery's lash the freeman's will. 
For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; soo 

A school-house plant on every hill. 
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 
The quick wires of intelligence ; 
Till North and South together brought 
Shall own the same electric thought, 505 

In peace a common flag salute. 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry. 
Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest that winter night ao 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 



210 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, sis 

Strong, self -concentred, spurning guide, 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unfeared, half-welcome guest, 520 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 

A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash, 
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 525 

And under low brows, black with night. 
Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 

The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 

Presaging ill to him whom Fate 

Condemned to share her love or hate. sso 

A woman tropical, intense 
In thought and act, in soul and sense, 
She blended in a like degree 
The vixen and the devotee. 
Revealing with each freak or feint 535 

The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 
The raptures of Siena's saint. 

Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 

Had facile power to form a fist ; 

The warm, dark languish of her eyes 540 

Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 

Brows saintly calm and lips devout 

636. See Shakespeare's comedy of the Taming of the Shrew. 

637. St. Catherine of Siena, who is represented as having 
wonderful visions. She made a vow of silence for three years. 



SNOW-BOUND. 211 

Knew every change of scowl and pout ; 

And the sweet voice had notes more high 

And shrill for social battle-cry. 545 

Since then what old cathedral town 

Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 

What convent-gate has held its lock 

Against the challenge of her knock ! 

Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, 550 

Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 

Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 

Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 

Or startling on her desert throne 

The crazy Queen of Lebanon 555 

With claims fantastic as her own, 

Her tireless feet have held their way ; 

And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 

She watches under Eastern skies. 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, seo 

The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 

Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 

555. An interesting account of Lady Hester Stanhope, an 
English gentlewoman who led a singular life on Mount Lebanon 
in Syria, will be found in Kinglake's Eothen, chapter viii. 

562. This not unfeared, half-welcome guest was Miss Harriet 
Livermore, daughter of Judge Livermore of New Hampshire. 
She was a woman of fine powers, but wayward, wild, and enthu- 
siastic. She went on an independent mission to the Western 
Indians, whom she, in common with some others, believed to be 
remnants of the lost tribes of Israel. At the time of this narra- 
tive she was about twenty-eight years old, but much of her life 
afterward was spent in the Orient. She was at one time the 
companion and friend of Lady Hester Stanhope, but finally 
quarrelled with her about the use of the holy horses kept in the 
stable in waiting for the Lord's ride to Jerusalem at the second 
advent. 



212 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Where'er her troubled path may be, 

The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! 
The outward wayward life we see, 565 

The hidden springs we may not know. 
Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun. 

Through what ancestral years has run 
The sorrow with the woman born, 570 

What forged her cruel chain of moods, 
What set her feet in solitudes. 

And held the love within her mute. 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A lifelong discord and annoy, 575 

Water of tears with oil of joy. 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 

The tangled skein of will and fate, sbo 

To show what metes and bounds should stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land. 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events ; 

But He who knows our frame is just, sss 

Merciful and compassionate. 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is. 

That He remembereth we are dust ! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low, 590 

Sent out a dull and duller glow. 

The bulFs-eye watch that hung in view, 

Ticking its weary circuit through. 

Pointed with mutely-warning sign 

Its black hand to the hour of nine. 595 



SNOW-BOUND. 213 

That sign the pleasant circle broke : 

My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 

And laid it tenderly away, 

Then roused himself to safely cover 60o 

The dull red brands with ashes over. 

And while, with care, our mother laid 

The work aside, her steps she stayed 

One moment, seeking to express 

Her grateful sense of happiness eos 

For food and shelter, warmth and health. 

And love's contentment more than wealth, 

With simple wishes (not the weak, 

Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek. 

But such as warm the generous heart, eio 

O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 

That none might lack, that bitter night, 

For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 

The wind that round the gables roared, as 

With now and then a ruder shock. 

Which made our very bedsteads rock. 

We heard the loosened clapboards tost. 

The board-nails snapping in the frost ; 

And on us, through the unplastered wall, 620 

Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 

When hearts are light and life is new ; 

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew, 

Till in the summer-land of dreams 625 

They softened to the sound of streams, 

Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 

And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 



214 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 

Of merry voices high and clear ; eso 

And saw the teamsters drawing near 

To break the drifted highways out. 

Down the long hillside treading slow 

We saw the half-buried oxen go, 

Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 635 

Their straining nostrils white with frost. 

Before our door the straggling train 

Drew up, an added team to gain. 

The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 64o 

From lip to lip ; the younger folks 

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled, 

Then toiled again the cavalcade 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine. 

And woodland paths that wound between 645 

Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 

From every barn a team afoot. 

At every house a new recruit. 

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law, 

Haply the watchful young men saw 650 

Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 

And curious eyes of merry girls. 

Lifting their hands in mock defence 

Against the snow-balls' compliments. 

And reading in each missive tost 655 

The charm with Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound ; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round, 

659. The wise old Doctor was Dr. Weld of Haverhill, an able 
man, who died at the age of ninety-six. 



SNOW-BOUND. 215 

Just pausing at our door to say 66o 

In the brief autocratic way 

Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, 

Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. ees 

For, one in generous thought and deed. 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light. 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 670 

Who, twain in faith, in love agree, 
And melt not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last. 675 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Eead and reread our little store 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

.From younger eyes, a book forbid, • eso 

And poetry, (or good or bad, 

A single book was all we had,) 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 

A stranger to the heathen Nine, 

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine, ess 

683. Thomas Ell wood, one of the Society of Friends, a con- 
temporary and friend of Milton, and the suggestor of Paradise 
Regained^ wrote an epic poem in five books, called Davideis, the 
life of King David of Israel. He wrote the book, we are told, 
for his own diversion, so it was not necessary that others should 
be diverted by it. Ellwood's autobiography, a quaint and de- 
lightful book, is included in Howells's series of Choice Autobio- 
graphies. 



690 



216 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The wars of David and the Jews. 
At last the floundering carrier bore 
The village paper to our door. 
Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 
In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvels that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft McGregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 695 

And up Taygetus winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 

A Turk's head at each saddle bow ! 
Welcome to us its week old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 700 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain. 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding knell and dirge of death ; 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale. 
The latest culprit sent to jail ; 705 

Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost. 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street. 
The pulse of life that round us beat ; . 710 

The chill embargo of the snow 

693. Referring to the removal of the Creek Indians from 
Georgia to beyond the Mississippi. 

694. In 1822 Sir Gregor McGregor, a Scotchman, began an 
ineffectual attempt to establish a colony in Costa Rica. 

697. Taygetus is a mountain on the Gulf of Messenia in 
Greece, and near by is the district of Maina, noted for its rob- 
bers and pirates. It was from these mountaineers that Ypsilanti, 
a Greek patriot, drew his cavalry in the struggle with Turkey 
which resulted in the independence of Greece. 



SNOW-BOUND. 217 

Was melted in the genial glow ; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more ! 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 715 

And folded wings of ashen gray 

And voice of echoes far away. 
The brazen covers of thy book ; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past ; 720 

Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe ; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears. 
Green hills of life that slope to death, 725 

And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 

Shade off to mournful cypresses 
With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 730 

Importunate hours that hours succeed. 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
I hear again the voice that bids 735 

The dreamer leave his dream midway 

For larger hopes and graver fears : 

Life greatens in these later years ^ 
The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 

Yet, haply, in some lull of life, 740 

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife, 

741. The name is drawn from a historic compact in 1040, 
when the Church forbade barons to make auy attack on each 



^18 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, 

Dreaming in throngf ul city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew ; 
And dear and early friends — the few 745 

Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days ; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth, 
And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! 750 

And thanks untraced to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 
From unseen meadows newly mown. 
Or lilies floating in some pond. 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 755 

The traveller owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence. 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 

other between sunset on Wednesday and sunrise on the following 
Monday, or upon any ecclesiastical fast or feast day. It also 
provided that no man was to molest a laborer working in the 
fields, or to lay hands on any implement of husbandry, on pain 
of excommunication. 

747. The Flemish school of painting was chiefly occupied with 
homely interiors. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 219 



10 



AMONG THE HILLS. 

PRELUDE. 

Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod. 
And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 
Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
Unfelt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf 
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 
Confesses it. The locust by the wall 
Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. 
A single hay-cart down the dusty road 
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep 
On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill, 
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, 15 

The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still 
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door 
A drowsy smell of flowers — gray heliotrope, 
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — 
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 20 

To the pervading symphony of peace. 

No time is this for hands long over-worn 

To task their strength : and (unto Him be praise 

2. The Incas were the kings of the ancient Peruvians. At 
Yucay, their favorite residence, the gardens, according to Pres- 
cott, contained "forms of vegetable life skilfully imitated in 
gold and silver." See History of the Conquest of Peru, i. 130. 



220 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHIT TIER. 

Who giveth quietness I) tlie stress and strain 

0£ years that did the work of centuries 25 

Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once more 

Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters 

Make glad their nooning underneath the elms 

With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, 

I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn 30 

The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming o'er 

Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, 

And human life, as quiet, at their feet. 

And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, 

Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling 35 

All their fine possibilities, how rich 

And restful even poverty and toil 

Become when beauty, harmony, and love 

Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat 

At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man 40 

Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock 

The symbol of a Christian chivalry 

Tender and just and generous to her 

Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I know 

Too well the picture has another side, — 45 

How wearily the grind of toil goes on 

Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear 

And heart are starved amidst the plenitude 

Of nature, and how hard and colorless 

Is life without an atmosphere. I look so 

Across the lapse of half a century. 

And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower 

Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, 

Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place 

26. The volume in which this poem stands first, and to 
which it gives the name, was published in the fall of 1868. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 221 

Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose 55 

And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed 

Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine 

To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves ^ 

Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes 

Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness. eo 

Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed 

(Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best room 

Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air 

In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless 

Save the inevitable sampler hung es 

Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, 

A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath 

Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth 

Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing 

The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back ; 70 

And, in sad keeping with all things about them, 

Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men. 

Untidy, loveless, old before their time, 

With scarce a human interest save their own 

Monotonous round of small economies, 75 

Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ; 

Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, 

Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet ; 

For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink 

Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ; so 

For them in vain October's holocaust 

Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, 

The sacramental mystery of the woods. 

Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, 

But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, 85 

Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls 

And winter pork with the least possible outlay 

Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life 



222 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER, 

Showing as little actual comprehension 

Of Christian charity and love and duty, 90 

As if the Sermon on the Mount had been 

Outdated like a last year's almanac : 

Rich in broad woodlands and in haK-tilled fields, 

And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless. 

The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, 95 

The sun and air his sole inheritance. 

Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, 

And hugged his rags in self-complacency ! 

Not such should be the homesteads of a land 

Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell 100 

As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state. 

With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make 

His hour of leisure richer than a life 

Of fourscore to the barons of old time. 

Our yeoman should be equal to his home 105 

Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, 

A man to match his mountains, not to creep 

Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain 

In this light way (of which I needs must own 

With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, uo 

" Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you ! ") 

Invite the eye to see and heart to feel 

The beauty and the joy within their reach, — 

Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes 

110. The Anti-Jacobin was a periodical published in England 
in 1797-98, to ridicule democratic opinions, and in it Canning, 
who afterward became premier of England, wrote many light 
verses smd Jeux d^ esprit, sunong them a humorous poem called the 
Needy Knife-Grinder, in burlesque of a poem by Southey. The 
knife-grinder is anxiously appealed to to tell his story of wrong 
and injustice, but answers as here : — 

" Story, God bless you ! I 've none to tell." 



AMONG THE HILLS. 223 

Of nature free to all. Haply in years 115 

That wait to take the places of our own, 

Heard where some breezy balcony looks down 

On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon 

Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, 

In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet 120 

Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine 

May seem the burden of a prophecy, 

Finding its late fulfilment in a change 

Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up 

Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 125 

And reverence, to the level of the hills. 

O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn. 
And not of sunset, forward, not behind, 
Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee bring 
All the old virtues, whatsoever things 130 

Are pure and honest and of good repute, 
But add thereto whatever bard has sung 
Or seer has told of when in trance and dream 
They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy ! 
Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide 135 

Between the right and wrong, but give the heart 
The freedom of its fair inheritance ; 
Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long. 
At Nature's table feast his ear and eye 
With joy and wonder ; let all harmonies 140 

Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon 
The princely guest, whether in soft attire 
Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil. 
And, lending life to the dead form of faith, 
Give human nature reverence for the sake 145 

Of One who bore it, making it divine 
134. See note to 1. 337, p. 185. 



224 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

With the ineffable tenderness of God ; 

Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 

The heirship of an unknown destiny. 

The unsolved mystery round about us, make im 

A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. 

Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things 

Should minister, as outward types and signs 

Of the eternal beauty which fulfils 

The one great purpose of creation, Love, 155 

The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! 

AMONG THE HILLS. 

For weeks the clouds had raked the hills 
And vexed the vales with raining, 

And all the woods were sad with mist, 

And all the brooks complaining. leo 

At last, a sudden night-storm tore 

The mountain veils asunder, 
And swept the valleys clean before 

The besom of the thunder. 

Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang i65 

Good morrow to the cotter ; 
And once again Chocorua's horn 

Of shadow pierced the water. 

165. Sandwich Notch, Chocorua Mountain, Ossipee Lake, and 
the Bearcamp River are all striking features of the scenery in 
that part of New Hampshire which lies just at the entrance of 
the White Mountain region. Many of Whittier's most graceful 
poems are drawn from the suggestions of this country, long a 
favorite summer resort of his, and a mountain near West Ossi- 
pee has received his name. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 226 

Above his broad lake Ossipee, 

Once more the sunshine wearing, i7o 

Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 

His grim armorial bearing. 

Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, 

The peaks had winter's keenness ; 
And, close on autumn's frost, the vales its 

Had more than June's fresh greenness. 

Again the sodden forest floors 

With golden lights were checkered. 

Once more rejoicing leaves in wind 

And sunshine danced and flickered. iso 

It was as if the summer's late 

Atoning for its sadness 
Had borrowed every season's charm 

To end its days in gladness. 

I call to mind those banded vales iss 

Of shadow and of shining. 
Through which, my hostess at my side, 

I drove in day's declining. 

We held our sideling way above 

The river's whitening shallows, lao 

By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns 

Swept through and through by swallows ; 

By maple orchards, belts of pine 

And larches climbing darkly 
The mountain slopes, and, over all, iss 

The great peaks rising starkly. 



226 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

You should have seen that long hill-range 
With gaps of brightness riven, — 

How through each pass and hollow streamed 
The purpling lights of heaven, — 200 

Eivers of gold-mist flowing down 

From far celestial fountains, — 
The great sun flaming through the rifts 

Beyond the wall of mountains ! 

We paused at last where home-bound cows 205 
Brought down the pasture's treasure, 

And in the barn the rhythmic flails 
Beat out a harvest measure. 

We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, 

The crow his tree-mates calling : 210 

The shadows lengthening down the slopes 
About our feet were falling. 

And through them smote the level sun 

In broken lines of splendor. 
Touched the gray rocks and made the green 215 

Of the shorn grass more tender. 

The maples bending o'er the gate. 

Their arch of leaves just tinted 
With yellow warmth, the golden glow 

Of coming autumn hinted. 



220 



Keen white between the farm-house showed, 
And smiled on porch and trellis, 

The fair democracy of flowers 
That equals cot and palace. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 227 

And weaving garlands for her dog, 225 

'Twixt cliidings and caresses, 
A human flower of childliood shook 

The sunshine from her tresses. 

On either hand we saw the signs 

Of fancy and of shrewdness, 230 

Where taste had wound its arms of vines 

Kound thrift's uncomely rudeness. 

The sun-brown farmer in his frock 

Shook hands, and called to Mary : 
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, 235 

White-aproned from her dairy. 

Her air, her smile, her motions, told 

Of womanly completeness ; 
A music as of household songs 

Was in her voice of sweetness. 240 

Not fair alone in curve and line. 

But something more and better, 
The secret charm eluding art. 

Its spirit, not its letter ; — 

An inborn grace that nothing lacked 245 

Of culture or appliance, — 
The warmth of genial courtesy. 

The calm of self-reliance. 

Before her queenly womanhood 

How dared our hostess utter 250 

The paltry errand of her need 

To buy her fresh-churned butter ? 



228 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

She led the way with housewife pride, 

Her goodly store disclosing, 
Full tenderly the golden balls 255 

With practised hands disposing. 

Then, while along the western hills 

We watched the changeful glory 
Of sunset, on our homeward way, 

I heard her simple story. 



260 



The early crickets sang ; the stream 
Plashed through my friend's narration : 

Her rustic patois of the hills 
Lost in my free translation. 

" More wise," she said, " than those who swarm 265 
Our hills in middle summer. 
She came, when June's first roses blow. 
To greet the early comer. 

" From school and ball and rout she came, 

The city's fair, pale daughter, 270 

To drink the wine of mountain air 
Beside the Bearcamp Water. 

" Her step grew firmer on the hills 
That watch our homesteads over ; 
On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 275 

She caught the bloom of clover. 

" For health comes sparkling in the streams 
From cool Chocorua stealing : 
There 's iron in our Northern winds ; 

Our pines are trees of healing. 280 



AMONG THE HILLS. 229 

" She sat beneath the broad-armed elms 
That skirt the mowing-meadow, 
And watched the gentle west-wind weave 
The grass with shine and shadow. 

" Beside her, from the summer heat 285 

To share her grateful screening. 
With forehead bared, the farmer stood. 
Upon his pitchfork leaning. 

" Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face 

Had nothing mean or common, — 290 

Strong, manly, true, the tenderness 
And pride beloved of woman. 

" She looked up, glowing with the health 
The country air had brought her, 
And, laughing, said : ' You lack a wife, 295 

Your mother lacks a daughter. 

" ' To mend your frock and bake your bread 
You do not need a lady : 
Be sure among these brown old homes 
Is some one waiting ready, — 



300 



" ' Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand 
And cheerful heart for treasure, 
Who never played with ivory keys, 
Or danced the polka's measure.' 

" He bent his black brows to a frown, 305 

He set his white teeth tightly. 
' 'T is well,' he said, ' for one like you 

To choose for me so lightly. 



230 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" ' You think, because my life is rude 

I take no note of sweetness : 310 

I tell you love has naught to do 
With meetness or unmeetness. 

" ' Itself its best excuse, it asks 
No leave of pride or fashion 
When silken zone or homespun frock 315 

It stirs with throbs of passion. 

" ' You think me deaf and blind : you bring 
Your winning graces hither 
As free as if from cradle-time 

We two had played together. 320 

" ' You tempt me with your laughing eyes, 
Your cheek of sundown's blushes, 
A motion as of waving grain, 
A music as of thrushes. 

" ' The plaything of your summer sport, 325 

The spells you weave around me 
You cannot at your will undo. 
Nor leave me as you found me. 

^' ' You go as lightly as you came, 

Your life is well without me ; 330 

What care you that these hills will close 
Like prison-walls about me ? 

^' ' No mood is mine to seek a wife. 
Or daughter for my mother : 
Who loves you loses in that love 335 

All power to love another ! 



AMONG THE HILLS. 231 



(( i 



I dare your pity or your scorn, 
With pride your own exceeding ; 
I fling my heart into your lap 
Without a word of pleading.' 



340 



" She looked up in his face of pain 
So archly, yet so tender : 
' And if I lend you mine,' she said, 
' Will you forgive the lender ? 

u (. A^Qp frock nor tan can hide the man ; 345 

And see you not, my farmer. 
How weak and fond a woman waits 
Behind this silken armor ? 

" ' I love you : on that love alone, 

And not my worth, presuming, 350 

Will you not trust for summer fruit 
The tree in May-day blooming ? ' 

" Alone the hangbird overhead, 

His hair-swung cradle straining. 
Looked down to see love's miracle, — 355 

The giving that is gaining. 

" And so the farmer found a wife. 
His mother found a daughter : 
There looks no happier home than hers 

On pleasant Bearcamp Water. 36o 

" Flowers spring to blossom where she walks 
The careful ways of duty ; 
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her 
Are flowing curves of beauty. 



232 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Our homes are cheerier for her sake, 365 

Our door-yards brighter blooming, 
And all about the social air 
Is sweeter for her coming. 



" The coarseness of a ruder time 
Her finer mirth displaces, 
A subtler sense of pleasure fills 
Each rustic sport she graces. 



37lt 



" Unspoken homilies of peace 
Her daily life is preaching ; 
The still refreshment of the dew 
Is her unconscious teaching. 

" And never tenderer hand than hers 
Unknits the brow of ailing ; 
Her garments to the sick man's ear 375 

Have music in their trailing. 

" And when, in pleasant harvest moons, 
The youthful buskers gather, 
Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways 

Defy the winter weather, — aso 

" In sugar-camps, when south and warm 
The winds of March are blowing, 
And sweetly from its thawing veins 
The maple's blood is flowing, — 

" In summer, where some lilied pond sss 

Its virgin zone is baring. 
Or where the ruddy autumn fire 
Lights up the apple-paring, — 



390 



AMONG THE HILLS. 233 

" Her presence lends its warmth and health 
To all who come before it. 
If woman lost us Eden, such »95 

As she alone restore it. 

" For larger life and wiser aims 
The farmer is her debtor ; 
Who holds to his another's heart 

Must needs be worse or better. 400 

" Through her his civic service shows 
A purer-toned ambition ; 
No double consciousness divides 
The man and politician. 

" In party's doubtful ways he trusts 405 

Her instincts to determine ; 
At the loud polls, the thought of her 
Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. 

" He owns her logic of the heart. 

And wisdom of unreason, 410 

Supplying, while he doubts and weighs. 
The needed word in season. 

" He sees with pride her richer thought, 
Her fancy's freer ranges ; 
And love thus deepened to respect 415 

Is proof against all changes. 

" And if she walks at ease in ways 
His feet are slow to travel, 
And if she reads with cultured eyes 

What his may scarce unravel, 420 



284 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Still clearer, for her keener sight 
Of beauty and of wonder, 
He learns the meaning of the hills 
He dwelt from childhood under. 

" And higher, warmed with summer lights, 425 

Or winter-crowned and hoary, 
The ridged horizon lifts for him 
Its inner veils of glory. 

" He has his own free, bookless lore, 

The lessons nature taught him, 430 

The wisdom which the woods and hills 
And toiling men have brought him : 

" The steady force of will whereby 
Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; 
The sturdy counterpoise which makes 435 

Her woman's life completer ; 

" A latent fire of soul which lacks 
No breath of love to fan it ; 
And wit, that, like his native brooks, 

Plays over solid granite. 440 

" How dwarfed against his manliness 
She sees the poor pretension. 
The wants, the aims, the follies, bom 
Of fashion and convention ! 

" How life behind its accidents 445 

Stands strong and self-sustaining. 
The human fact transcending all 
The losing and the gaining. 



AMONG THE HILLS. 235 

" And so in grateful interchange 

Of teacher and of hearer, 450 

Their lives their true distinctness keep 
While daily drawing nearer. 

" And if the husband or the wife 
In home's strong light discovers 
Such slight defaults as failed to meet 455 

The blinded eyes of lovers, 

" Why need we care to ask ? — who dreams 
Without their thorns of roses, 
Or wonders that the truest steel 

The readiest spark discloses ? 46o 

" For still in mutual sufferance lies 
The secret of true living ; 
Love scarce is love that never knows 
The sweetness of forgiving. 

" We send the Squire to General Court, 465 

He takes his young wife thither ; 
No prouder man election day 

Rides through the sweet June weather. 

" He sees with eyes of manly trust 

All hearts to her inclining ; 470 

Not less for him his household light 
That others share its shining." 

Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew 

Before me, warmer tinted 
And outlined with a tenderer grace, 475 

The picture that she hinted. 



236 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

The sunset smouldered as we drove 

Beneath the deep hill-shadows. 
Below us wreaths of white fog walked 

Like ghosts the haunted meadows. 480 

Sounding the summer night, the stars 
Dropped down their golden plummets ; 

The pale arc of the Northern lights 
Rose o'er the mountain summits, 

Until, at last, beneath its bridge, «5 

We heard the Bearcamp flowing, 
And saw across the maple lawn 

The welcome home-lights glowing. 

And, musing on the tale I heard, 

'T were well, thought I, if often m 

To rugged farm-life came the gift 

To harmonize and soften ; 

If more and more we found the troth 

Of fact and fancy plighted, 
And culture's charm and labor's strength 4S5 

In rural homes united, — 

The simple life, the homely hearth, 
With beauty's sphere surrounding. 

And blessing toil where toil abounds 

With graces more abounding. soo 



MABEL MARTIN. 237 



MABEL MARTIN. 

[Thi8 poem was published iu 1875, but it had already appeared 
in an earlier version in 1860 under the title of The Witches 
Daughter, in Home Ballads and other Poems. Mabel Martin is 
in the same measure as The Witches Daughter, and many of the 
verses are the same, but the poet has taken the first draft as a 
sketch, filled it out, adding verses here and there, altering lines 
and making an introduction, so that the new version is a third 
longer than the old. The reader will find it interesting to com- 
pare the two poems. The scene is laid on the Merrimack, as 
Deer Island and Hawkswood near Newburyport intimate. A 
fruitful comparison might be drawn between the treatment of 
such gubjects by Whittier and by Hawthorne.] 



PART I. 
THE EIVER VALLEY. 

AcEOSS the level table-land, 
A grassy, rarely trodden way, 
Witli thinnest skirt of birchen spray 

And stunted growth of cedar, leads 

To where you see the dull plain fall 5 

Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all 

The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink 
The over-leaning harebells swing ; 
With roots half bare the pine-trees cling ; 

And, through the shadow looking west, lo 

You see the wavering river flow 
Along a vale, that far below 



238 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills 
And glimmering water-line between, 
Broad fields of corn and meadows green, is 

And fruit-bent orchards grouped around 
The low brown roofs and painted eaves, 
And chimney-tops half hid in leaves. 

No warmer valley hides behind 

Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak; 20 
No fairer river comes to seek 

The wave-sung welcome of the sea, 
Or mark the northmost border line 
Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine. 

Here, ground-fast in their native fields, 25 

Untempted by the city's gain, 
The quiet farmer folk remain 

Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, 
And keep their fathers' gentle ways 
And simple speech of Bible days ; so 

In whose neat homesteads woman holds 
With modest ease her equal place, 
And wears upon her tranquil face 

The look of one who, merging not 

Her self-hood in another's will, 35 

Is love's and duty's handmaid still. 

Pass with me down the path that winds 
Through birches to the open land. 
Where, close upon the river strand. 



MABEL MARTIN. 239 

You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, 40 

Above whose wall of loosened stones 
The sumach lifts its reddening cones, 

And the black nightshade's berries shine. 
And broad, unsightly burdocks fold 
The household ruin, century-old. 45 

Here, in the dim colonial time 

Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, 
A woman lived, tradition saith, 

Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy. 

And witched and plagued the country-side, 50 
Till at the hangman's hand she died. 

Sit with me while the westering day 
Falls slantwise down the quiet vale. 
And, haply, ere yon loitering sail. 

That rounds the upper headland, falls 55 

Below Deer Island's pines, or sees 
Behind it Hawks wood's belt of trees 

Rise black against the sinking sun, 
My idyl of its days of old, 
The valley's legend, shall be told. eo 



PART II. 

THE HUSKING. 

It was the pleasant harvest-time, 
When cellar-bins are closely stowed, 
And garrets bend beneath their load. 



240 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

And the old swallow-haunted barns, — 

Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 65 

Through which the moted sunlight streams. 

And winds blow freshly in, to shake 
The red plumes of the roosted cocks. 
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks, — 

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, to 

Its odorous grass and barley sheaves. 
From their low scaffolds to their eaves. 

On Esek Harden's oaken floor, 

With many an autumn threshing worn. 

Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn. 75 

And thither came young men and maids, 
Beneath a moon that, large and low. 
Lit that sweet eve of long ago. 

They took their places ; some by chance, 

And others by a merry voice so 

Or sweet smile guided to their choice. 

How pleasantly the rising moon. 
Between the shadow of the mows. 
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs ! 

On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned, 85 

On girlhood with its solid curves 
Of healthful strength and painless nerves ! 

And jests went round, and laughs that made 
The house-dog answer with his howl. 
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ; 90 



MABEL MARTIN. 241 

And quaint old songs their fathers sung 
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, 
Ere Norman William trod their shores ; 

And tales, whose merry license shook 

The fat sides of the Saxon thane, 95 

Forgetful of the hovering Dane, — 

Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known. 
The charms and riddles that beguiled 
On Oxus' banks the young world's child, — 

That primal picture-speech wherein 100 

Have youth and maid the story told. 
So new in each, so dateless old, 

Kecalling pastoral Ruth in her 

Who waited, blushing and demure, 

The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture. 105 



PART III. 

THE witch's daughter. 

But still the sweetest voice was mute 
That river-valley ever heard 
From lips of maid or throat of bird ; 

99. The Oxus, which was the great river of Upper Asia, 
flowed past what has been regarded as the birthplace of West- 
ern people, who emigrated from that centre. Some of the rid- 
dles and plays which we have are of great antiquity, and may 
have been handed down from the time when our ancestors were 
still Asiatics. 



242 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

For Mabel Martin sat apart, 

And let the hay-mow's shadow fall no 

Upon the loveliest face of all. 

She sat apart, as one forbid. 

Who knew that none would condescend 
To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. 

The seasons scarce had gone their round, 115 

Since curious thousands thronged to see 
Her mother at the gallows-tree ; 

And mocked the prison-palsied limbs 
That faltered on the fatal stairs. 
And wan lip trembling with its prayers ! 120 

Few questioned of the sorrowing child, 
Or, when they saw the mother die, 
Dreamed of the daughter's agony. 

They went up to their homes that day, 

As men and Christians justified : 125 

God willed it, and the wretch had died ! 

Dear God and Father of us all, 
Forgive our faith in cruel lies, — 
Forgive the blindness that denies ! 

Forgive Thy creature when he takes, i3o 

For the all-perfect love Thou art. 
Some grim creation of his heart. 

117. In Upham's History of Salem Witchcraft will be found 
an account of the trial and execution of Susanna Martin for 
witchcraft. 



MABEL MARTIN. 243 

Cast down our idols, overturn 
Our bloody altars ; let us see 
Thyself in Thy humanity ! 135 

Young Mabel from her mother's grave 
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone, 
And wrestled with her fate alone ; 

With love, and anger, and despair. 

The phantoms of disordered sense, uo 

The awful doubts of Providence ! 

Oh, dreary broke the winter days, 
And dreary fell the winter nights 
When, one by one, the neighboring lights 

Went out, and human sounds grew still, 145 

And all the phantom-peopled dark 
Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark. 

And summer days were sad and long. 
And sad the uncompanioned eves. 
And sadder sunset-tinted leaves, 150 

And Indian Summer's airs of balm ; 
She scarcely felt the soft caress. 
The beauty died of loneliness ! 

The school-boys jeered her as they passed. 

And, when she sought the house of prayer, 155 
Her mother's curse pursued her there. 

And still o'er many a neighboring door 
She saw the horseshoe's curved charm. 
To guard against her mother's harm : 



244 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

That mother, poor and sick and lame, leo 

Who daily, by the old arm-chair, 
Folded her withered hands in prayer ; — 

Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, 
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er, 
When her dim eyes could read no more ! les 

Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept 
Her faith, and trusted that her way. 
So dark, would somewhere meet the day. 

And still her weary wheel went round 

Day after day, with no relief : no 

Small leisure have the poor for grief. 



PART IV. 
THE CHAMPION. 

So in the shadow Mabel sits ; 

Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, 
Her smile is sadder than her tears. 

But cruel eyes have found her out, ns 

And cruel lips repeat her name. 
And taunt her with her mother's shame. 

She answered not with railing words. 
But drew her apron o'er her face, 
And, sobbing, glided from the place, iso 

And only pausing at the door. 

Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze 
Of one who, in her better days, 



MABEL MARTIN. 245 

Had been her warm and steady friend, 

Ere yet her mother's doom had made i85 

Even Esek Harden half afraid. 

He felt that mute appeal of tears, 
And, starting, with an angry frown, 
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. 

" Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, i9o 

'* This passes harmless mirth or jest ; 
I brook no insult to my guest. 

" She is indeed her mother's child ; 
But God's sweet pity ministers 
Unto no whiter soul than hers. 195 

" Let Goody Martin rest in peace ; 
I never knew her harm a fly, 
And witch or not, God knows — not I. 

" I know who swore her life away ; 

And as God lives, I 'd not condemn 200 

An Indian dog on word of them." 

The broadest lands in all the town, 
The skill to guide, the power to awe, 
Were Harden's ; and his word was law. 

None dared withstand him to his face, 205 

But one sly maiden spake aside : 
" The little witch is evil-eyed ! 

" Her mother only killed a cow. 

Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ; 

But she, forsooth, must charm a man ! " 210 



246 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

PART V. 
IN THE SHADOW. 

Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed 
The nameless terrors of the wood, 
And saw, as if a ghost pursued. 

Her shadow gliding in the moon ; 

The soft breath of the west-wind gave 215 

A chill as from her mother's grave. 

How dreary seemed the silent house ! 
Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare 
Its windows had a dead man's stare ! 

And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, 220 

The tremulous shadow of a birch 
Keached out and touched the door's low porch. 

As if to lift its latch ; hard by, 
A sudden warning call she heard, 
The night-cry of a brooding bird. 225 

She leaned against the door ; her face, 
So fair, so young, so full of pain. 
White in the moonlight's silver rain. 

The river, on its pebbled rim. 

Made music such as childhood knew ; 230 

The door-yard tree was whispered through 

By voices such as childhood's ear 
Had heard in moonlights long ago ; 
And through the willow-boughs below 



MABEL MARTIN. 247 

She saw the rippled waters shine ; 255 

Beyond, in waves of shade and light, 
The hills rolled off into the night. 

She saw and heard, but over all 

A sense of some transforming spell, 

The shadow of her sick heart fell. 240 

And still across the wooded space 
The harvest lights of Harden shone, 
And song and jest and laugh went on. 

And he, so gentle, true, and strong. 

Of men the bravest and the best, 245 

Had he, too, scorned her with the rest ? 

She strove to drown her sense of wrong, 
And, in her old and simple way. 
To teach her bitter heart to pray. 

Poor child ! the prayer, begun in faith, 250 

Grew to a low, despairing cry 
Of utter misery : " Let me die ! 

" Oh, take me from the scornful eyes. 
And hide me where the cruel speech 
And mocking finger may not reach ! 255 

" I dare not breathe my mother's name : 
A daughter's right I dare not crave 
To weep above her unblest grave ! 

" Let me not live until my heart. 

With few to pity, and with none 260 

To love me, hardens into stone. 



248 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" O God I have mercy on Thy child, 

Whose faith in Thee grows weak and small, 
And take me ere I lose it all ! " 

A shadow on the moonlight fell, 265 

And murmuring wind and wave became 
A voice whose burden was her name. 



PART VI. 

THE BETROTHAL. 

Had then God heard her ? Had He sent 
His angel down ? In flesh and blood, 
Before her Esek Harden stood ! 270 

He laid his hand upon her arm : 

" Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ; 
Who scoffs at you must scoff at me. 

" You know rough Esek Harden well ; 

And if he seems no suitor gay, 275 

And if his hair is touched with gray, 

" The maiden grown shall never find 

His heart less warm than when she smiled. 
Upon his knees, a little child ! " 

Her tears of grief were tears of joy, 280 

As, folded in his strong embrace. 
She looked in Esek Harden's face. 

" Oh, truest friend of all ! " she said, 

" God bless you for your kindly thought. 
And make me worthy of my lot ! " 285 



MABEL MARTIN. 249 

He led her forth, and, blent in one, 
Beside their happy pathway ran 
The shadows of the maid and man. 

He led her through his dewy fields, 

To where the swinging lanterns glowed, 290 

And through the doors the huskers showed. 

" Good friends and neighbors ! " Esek said, 
" I 'm weary of this lonely life ; 
In Mabel see my chosen wife ! 

" She greets you kindly, one and all ; 295 

The past is past, and all offence 
Falls harmless from her innocence. 

" Henceforth she stands no more alone ; 
You know what Esek Harden is ; — 
He brooks no wrong to him or his. 300 

" Now let the merriest tales be told. 
And let the sweetest songs be sung 
That ever made the old heart young! # 



305 



" For now the lost has found a home ; 

And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, 
As all the household joys return ! " 

Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon. 
Between the shadow of the mows, 
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs ! 

On Mabel's curls of golden hair, 310 

On Esek'g shaggy strength it fell ; 
And the wind whispered, " It is well ! " 



250 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 

[" This ballad was written," Mr. Whittier says, "on the occa- 
sion of a Horticultural Festival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted 
character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merri- 
mack."] 

The beaver cut his timber 

With patient teeth that day, 
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows 

Surveyors of highway, — 

When Keezar sat on the hillside 5 

Upon his cobbler's form, 
With a pan of coals on either hand 

To keep his waxed-ends warm. 

And there, in the golden weather, 

He stitched and hammered and sung ; lo 

In the brook he moistened his leather. 
In the pewter mug his tongue. 

Well knew the tough old Teuton 

Who brewed the stoutest ale, 
And he paid the good wife's reckoning is 

In the coin of song and tale. 

The songs they still are singing 

Who dress the hills of vine. 
The tales that haunt the Brocken ^ 

And whisper down the Rhine. 20 

19. The Brocken is the highest summit of the Hartz range in 
Germany, and a great body of superstitions has gathered about 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 251 

Woodsy and wild and lonesome, 

The swift stream wound away, 
Through birches and scarlet maples 

Flashing in foam and spray, — 

Down on the sharp-horned ledges 25 

Plunging in steep cascade. 
Tossing its white-maned waters 

Against the hemlock's shade. 

Woodsy and wild and lonesome. 

East and west and north and south ; 30 

Only the village of fishers 

Down at the river's mouth ; 

Only here and there a clearing, 
With its farm-house rude and new, 

And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, 35 

Where the scanty harvest grew. 

No shout of home-bound reapers. 

No vintage-song he heard, 
And on the green no dancing feet 

The merry violin stirred. 40 

" Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, 
" When Nature herself is glad, 
And the painted woods are laughing 
At the faces so sour and sad ? " 

Small heed had the careless cobbler 45 

What sorrow of heart was theirs 

the whole range. May-day night, called Walpurgis Night, is 
held to be the time of a great witch festival on the Brocken. 



252 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Who travailed in pain with the births of God, 
And planted a state with prayers, — 

Hunting of witches and warlocks. 

Smiting the heathen horde, — 50 

One hand on the mason's trowel. 

And one on the soldier's sword ! 

But give him his ale and cider. 

Give him his pipe and song. 
Little he cared for Church or State, 55 

Or the balance of right and wrong. 

" 'T is work, work, work," he muttered, — 
" And for rest a snuffle of psalms ! " 
He smote on his leathern apron 

With his brown and waxen palms. eo 

" Oh for the purple harvests 

Of the days when I was young ! 
For the merry grape-stained maidens, 
And the pleasant songs they sung ! 

" Oh for the breath of vineyards, 65 

Of apples and nuts and wine ! 
For an oar to row and a breeze to blow 
Down the grand old river Rhine ! " 

A tear in his blue eye glistened. 

And dropped on his beard so gray. 70 

" Old, old am I," said Keezar, 

" And the Rhine flows far away ! " 

But a cunning man was the cobbler ; 
He could call the birds from the trees, 



COBBLER KEEZARS VISION. 253 

Charm the black snake out of the ledges, 75 
And bring back the swarming bees. 

All the virtues of herbs and metals, 
All the lore of the woods, he knew, 

And the arts of the Old World mingled 
With the marvels of the New. so 

Well he knew the tricks of magic, 

And the lapstone on his knee 
Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles. 

Or the stone of Doctor Dee. 

For the mighty master Agrippa 85 

Wrought it with spell and rhyme 

From a fragment of mystic moonstone 
In the tower of Nettesheim. 



90 



To a cobbler Minnesinger 

The marvellous stone gave he, — 

And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, 
Who brought it over the sea. 

He held up that mystic lapstone, 

He held it up like a lens. 
And he counted the long years coming 95 

By twenties and by tens. 

84. Dr. John Dee was a man of vast knowledge, who had an 
extensive museum, library, and apparatus ; he claimed to be an 
astrologer, and had acquired the reputation of having dealings 
with evil spirits, and a mob was raised which destroyed the 
greater part of his possessions. He professed to raise the dead 
and had a magic crystal. He died a pauper in 1608. 

85. Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) was an alchemist. 



254 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" One hundred years," quoth Keezar, 
" And fifty have I told : 
Now open the new before me, 

And shut me out the old ! " loo 

Like a cloud of mist, the blackness 

Rolled from the magic stone. 
And a marvellous picture mingled 

The unknown and the known. 

Still ran the stream to the river, 105 

And river and ocean joined ; 
And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line 

And cold north hills behind. 

But the mighty forest was broken 

By many a steepled town, no 

By many a white-walled farm-house, 

And many a garner brown. 

Turning a score of mill-wheels, 

The stream no more ran free ; 
White sails on the winding river, 115 

- White sails on the far-off sea. 

Below in the noisy village 

The flags were floating gay, 
And shone on a thousand faces 

The light of a holiday. 120 

Swiftly the rival ploughmen 

Turned the brown earth from their shares ; 
Here were the farmer's treasures, 

There were the craftsman's wares. 



COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 255 

Golden the good wife's butter, 125 

Ruby her currant-wine ; 
Grand were the strutting turkeys, 

Fat were the beeves and swine. 

Yellow and red were the apples, 

And the ripe pears russet-brown, 130 

And the peaches had stolen blushes 

From the girls who shook them down. 

And with blooms of hill and wild-wood, 

That shame the toil of art, 
Mingled the gorgeous blossoms 135 

Of the garden's tropic heart. 

" What is it I see ? " said Keezar : 
" Am I here, or am I there ? 
Is it a fete at Bingen ? 

Do I look on Frankfort fair ? mo 

" But where are the clowns and puppets, 
And imps with horns and tail ? 
And where are the Rhenish flagons ? 
And where is the foaming ale ? 

" Strange things, I know, will happen, — 145 
Strange things the Lord permits ; 
But that droughty folk should be jolly 
Puzzles my poor old wits. 

" Here are smiling manly faces. 

And the maiden's step is gay ; 150 

Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking. 
Nor mopes, nor fools, are they. 



256 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Here 's pleasure without regretting, 
And good without abuse, 
The holiday and the bridal 155 

Of beauty and of use. 

" Here 's a priest and there is a Quaker, — 
Do the cat and dog agree ? 
Have they burned the stocks for oven-wood? 
Have they cut down the gallows-tree ? leo 

" Would the old folk know their children ? 
Would they own the graceless town, 
With never a ranter to worry 
And never a witch to drown ? " 

Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, les 

Laughed like a school-boy gay ; 
Tossing his arms above him. 

The lapstone rolled away. 

It rolled down the rugged hillside, 

It spun like a wheel bewitched, no 

It plunged through the leaning willows. 

And into the river pitched. 

There, in the deep, dark water, 

The magic stone lies still, 
Under the leaning willows 175 

In the shadow of the hill. 

But oft the idle fisher 

Sits on the shadowy bank. 
And his dreams make marvellous pictures 

Where the wizard's lapstone sank. iso 



BARCLAY OF URY. 257 

And still, in the summer twilights, 

When the river seems to run 
Out from the inner glory, 

Warm with the melted sun, 

The weary mill-girl lingers i85 

Beside the charmed stream 
And the sky and the golden water 

Shape and color her dream. 

Fair wave the sunset gardens, 

The rosy signals fly ; i9o 

Her homestead beckons from the cloud, 

And love goes sailing by ! 



BARCLAY OF URY. 

[Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in 
Scotland was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, 
who had fought under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. As a 
Quaker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the 
hands of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the in- 
dignities of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul 
than this once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, 
on an occasion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should 
be treated so harshly in his old age who had been so honored 
before. "I find more satisfaction," said Barclay, "as well as 
honor, in being thus insulted for my religious principles, than 
when, a few years ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I 
passed the city of Aberdeen, to meet me on the road and con- 
duct me to public entertainment in their hall, and then escort 
me out again, to gain my favor." — Whittier.Ji 



258 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Up the streets of Aberdeen, 
By the kirk and college green, 

Rode the Laird of Ury ; 
Close behind him, close beside, 
Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, 6 

Pressed the mob in fury. 

Flouted him the drunken churl. 
Jeered at him the serving-girl, 

Prompt to please her master ; 
And the begging carlin, late lo 

Fed and clothed at Ury's gate. 

Cursed him as he passed her. 

Yet, with calm and stately mien, 
Up the streets of Aberdeen 

Came he slowly riding ; 15 

And, to all he saw and heard 
Answering not with bitter word. 

Turning not for chiding. 

Came a troop with broadswords swinging, 
Bits and bridles sharply ringing, 20 

Loose and free and f roward ; 
Quoth the foremost, " Ride him down ! 
Push him ! prick him ! through the town 

Drive the Quaker coward ! " 

But from out the thickening crowd 25 

Cried a sudden voice and loud : 

"Barclay! Ho! a Barclay!" 
And the old man at his side 
Saw a comrade, battle tried, 

Scarred and sunburned darkly ; 30 



BARCLAY OF URY. 259 

Who with ready weapon bare, 
Fronting to the troopers there, 

Cried aloud : " God save us. 
Call ye coward him who stood 
Ankle deep in Liitzen's blood, 35 

With the brave Gustavus ? " 

" Nay, I do not need thy sword. 
Comrade mine," said Ury's lord ; 

" Put it up, I pray thee : 
Passive to His holy will, 40 

Trust I in my Master still. 

Even though He slay me. 

" Pledges of thy love and faith. 
Proved on many a field of death. 

Not by me are needed." 45 

Marvelled much that henchman bold. 
That his laird, so stout of old, 

Now so meekly pleaded. 

" Woe 's the day ! " he sadly said. 
With a slowly shaking head, 50 

And a look of pity ; 
" Ury's honest lord reviled. 
Mock of knave and sport of child. 
In his own good city ! 

" Speak the word, and, master mine, 55 

As we charged on Tilly's line, 
And his Walloon lancers, 

35. It was at Liitzen, near Leipzig, that Gustavus Adolphus 
fell in 1632. He was the hero of Schiller's Wallenstein, which 
Carlyle calls " the greatest tragedy of the eighteenth century." 

56. Count de Tilly was a fierce soldier under Wallenstein, who 



260 JOHN GREENLEAF WHIT TIER, 

Smiting through their midst we '11 teach 
Civil look and decent speech 

To these boyish prancers ! " eo 

" Marvel not, mine ancient friend, 
Like beginning, like the end," 
Quoth the Laird of Ury ; 
" Is the sinful servant more 
Than his gracious Lord who bore 65 

Bonds and stripes in Jewry ? 

" Give me joy that in His name 
I can bear, with patient frame. 

All these vain ones offer ; 
While for them He suffereth long, 70 

Shall I answer wrong with wrong. 

Scoffing with the scoffer? 

" Happier I, with loss of all. 
Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, 

With few friends to greet me, 75 

Than when reeve and squire were seen. 
Riding out from Aberdeen, 
With bared heads to meet me. 

" When each goodwife, o'er and o'er, 
Blessed me as I passed her door ; so 

And the snooded daughter. 
Through her casement glancing down, 
Smiled on him who bore renown 

From red fields of slaughter. 

in the Thirty Years' War laid siege to Magdeburg, and after 
two years took it and displayed great barbarity toward the in- 
habitants. The phrase, " like old Tilly," is still heard some- 
times in New England of any piece of special ferocity. 



BARCLAY OF URY. 261 

" Hard to feel the stranger's scoff, 85 

Hard the old friend's falling off, 

Hard to learn forgiving ; 
But the Lord His own rewards. 
And His love with theirs accords, 

Warm and fresh and living. 90 

" Through this dark and stormy night 
Faith beholds a feeble light 

Up the blackness streaking ; 
Knowing God's own time is best. 
In a patient hope I rest 95 

For the full day-breaking ! " 

So the Laird of Ury said, 
Turning slow his horse's head 

Towards the Tolbooth prison. 
Where, through iron grates, he heard 100 

Poor disciples of the Word 

Preach of Christ arisen ! 

Not in vain. Confessor old, 
Unto us the tale is told 

Of thy day of trial ; los 

Every age on him who strays 
From its broad and beaten ways 

Pours its sevenfold vial. 

Happy he whose inward ear 

Angel comfortings can hear, uo 

O'er the rabble's laughter ; 
And while Hatred's fagots burn. 
Glimpses through the smoke discern 

Of the good hereafter. 



262 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Knowing this, that never yet ns 

Share of Truth was vainly set 

In the world's wide fallow ; 
After hands shall sow the seed, 
After hands from hill and mead 

Reap the harvests yellow. 120 

Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, 
Must the moral pioneer 

From the Future borrow ; 
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, 
And, on midnight's sky of rain, 125 

Paint the golden morrow ! 



THE TWO RABBIS. 

The Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten, 
Walked blameless through the evil world, and then, 
Just as the almond blossomed in his hair. 
Met a temptation all too strong to bear. 
And miserably sinned. So, adding not s 

Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught 
No more among the elders, but went out 
From the great congregation, girt about 
With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head. 
Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, 10 
Smiting his breast ; then, as the Book he laid 
Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, 

12. Daughter of the Voice is the meaning of Bath-Col^ which 
was a sort of divination practised by the Jews when the gift ' f 



THE TWO RABBIS. ' 263 

Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, 

Behold the royal preacher's words : "A friend 

Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ; is 

And for the evil day thy brother lives." 

Marvelling, he said : " It is the Lord w^ho gives 

Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dvrells 

Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels 

In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees 20 

Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees 

Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay 

My sins before him." 

And he went his way 
Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers ; 
But even as one who, followed unawares, 25 

Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand 
Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned 
By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near 
Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear. 
So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low 30 

The wail of t/SVid's penitential woe. 
Before him still the old temptation came. 
And mocked him with the motion and the shame 
Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred 
Himself ; and, crying mightily to the Lord 35 

To free his soul and cast the demon out, 
Smote with his staff the blankness round about. 

At length, in the low light of a spent day. 
The towers of Ecbatana far away 

prophecy had died out. Something of the same sort of divina- 
tion has been used amongst Christians when the Bible has been 
oj 3ned at hap-hazard and some answer expected to a question 
in the first passage that meets the eye. 



264 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Rose on tlie desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint 4o 

And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint 
The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, 
Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom 
He greeted kindly : " May the Holy One 
Answer thy prayers, O stranger ! " Whereupon 45 
The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, 
Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men 
Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence 
Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense 
Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore so 

Himself away : " O friend beloved, no more 
Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came. 
Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. 
Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine. 
May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. 55 
Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned ! " 

Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind 

Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare 

The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 

" I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, eo 

" In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not 

read, 
' Better the eye should see than that desire 
Should wander ' ? Burning with a hidden fire 
That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 
For pity and for help, as thou to me. 65 

Pray for me, O my friend ! " But Nathan cried 
" Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac ! " 

Side by side 
In the low sunshine by the turban stone 

59. Which he wore as a mortification of the flesh. 



THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. 265 

They knelt ; each made his brother's woe his own, 
Forgetting, in the agony and stress 70 

Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness ; 
Peace, for his friend besought, his own became ; 
His prayers were answered in another's name ; 
And, when at last they rose up to embrace. 
Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face ! 75 

Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, 
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos 
In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words we read : 
'''' HojiG not the cure of sin till Self is dead ; 
Forget it in lover's service^ and the debt so 

Thou canst not i^ay the angels shall forget ; 
Heaven^ s gate is shut to him who comes alone; 
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own I " 



THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. 

Tritemitjs of Herbipolis, one day, 

While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, 

Alone with God, as was his pious choice, 

Heard from without a miserable voice, 

A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell, 5 

As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 

Thereat the Abbot paused : the chain whereby 
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry ; 

77. The targum was a paraphrase of some portion of Scripture 
in the Chaldee language. It was on the margin of the most an- 
cient targum — that of Onkelos — that Rabbi Nathan wrote his 
words. 



266 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

And, looking from the casement, saw below 
A wretched woman, with gray hair aflow, lo 

And withered hands held up to him, who cried 
For alms as one who might not be denied. 

She cried, " For the dear love of Him who gave 
His life for ours, my child from bondage save, — 
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves 15 
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves 
Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " — " What I can 
I give," Tritemius said : " my prayers." — " O 

man 
Of God ! " she cried, for grief had made her bold, 
" Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, but gold. 20 
Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; 
Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies." 

" Woman ! " Tritemius answered, " from our door 
None go unfed ; hence are we always poor : 
A single soldo is our only store. 25 

Thou hast our prayers ; — what can we give thee 
more ? " 

" Give me," she said, " the silver candlesticks 

On either side of the great crucifix. 

God well may spare them on His errands sped, 

Or He can give you golden ones instead." 30 

Then spake Tritemius, " Even as thy word. 

Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious Lord, 

Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 

Pardon me if a human soul I prize 

Above the gifts upon His altar piled !) 35 

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." 



THE BROTHER OF MERCY. 267 

But his hand trembled as the holy alms 

He placed within the beggar's eager palms ; 

And as she vanished down the linden shade, 

He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. 4o 

So the day passed, and when the twilight came 
He woke to find the chapel all aflame. 
And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold. 



THE BROTHER OF MERCY. 

PlERO Luc A, known of all the town 

As the gray porter by the Pitti wall 

Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall, 

Sick and in dolor, waited to lay down 

His last sad burden, and beside his mat 5 

The barefoot monk of La Certosa sat. 

Unseen, in square and blossoming garden drifted, 
Soft sunset lights through green Yal d'Arno sifted ; 
Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted 
Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife, 10 
In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life : 
But when at last came upward from the street 
Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet. 
The sick man started, strove to rise in vain. 
Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain. 15 

6. The monastery of La Certosa is about four miles distant 
from Florence, the scene of this little poem. 

8. The Val d'Aruo is the valley of the river Arno, upon which 
Florence lies. 



268 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

And the monk said, " 'T is but the Brotherhood 

Of Mercy going on some errand good : 

Their black masks by the palace- wall I see.*' 

Piero answered faintly, " Woe is me ! 

This day for the first time in forty years 20 

In vain the bell hath sounded in my ears, 

Calling me with my brethren of the mask, 

Beggar and prince alike, to some new task 

Of love or pity, — haply from the street 

To bear a wretch plague-stricken, or, with feet 25 

Hushed to the quickened ear and feverish brain. 

To tread the crowded lazaretto's floors, 

Down the long twilight of the corridors, 

Midst tossing arms and faces full of pain. 

I loved the work : it was its own reward. 30 

I never counted on it to offset 

My sins, which are many, or make less my debt 

To the free grace and mercy of our Lord ; 

But somehow, father, it has come to be 

In these long years so much a part of me, 35 

I should not know myself, if lacking it. 

But with the work the worker too would die, 

And in my place some other self would sit 

16. The Brethren of the Misericordia, an association which 
had its origin in the thirteenth century, is composed mainly of 
the wealthy and prosperous, whose duty it is to nurse the sick, 
to aid those who have been injured by accident, and to secure 
decent burial to the poor and friendless. They are summoned 
by the sound of a bell, and, when it is heard, the member slips 
away from ball-room, or dinner party, or wherever he may be; 
puts on the black robe and hood, entirely concealing his face, — 
slit openings being provided for the eyes, — and performs the 
duty assigned to him. This thorough concealment is to aid in 
securing the perfect equality enjoined by the Order. 



THE BROTHER OF MERCY. 269 

Joyful or sad, — ■ what matters, if not I ? 
And now all 's over. Woe is me ! " 

" My son," 4o 
The monk said soothingly, " thy work is done ; 
And no more as a servant, but the guest 
Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest. 
No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost 
Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit down 45 
Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crown 
Forever and forever." — Piero tossed 
On his sick pillow : " Miserable me ! 
I am too poor for such grand company ; 
The crown would be too heavy for this gray so 

Old head ; and God forgive me if I say 
It would be hard to sit there night and day. 
Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught 
With these hard hands, that all my life have v/rought. 
Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. 55 

I 'm dull at prayers : I could not keep awake, 
Counting my beads. Mine 's but a crazy head, 
Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead 
And if one goes to heaven without a heart, 
God knows he leaves behind his better part. eo 

I love my fellow-men : the worst I know 
I would do good to. Will death change me so 
That I shall sit among the lazy saints. 
Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints 
Of souls that suffer ? Why, I never yet 65 

Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, 

53. The Tribune is a hall in the Uffizi Palace in Florence, 
where are assembled some of the most world-renowned statues, 
including the Venus de' Medici. 

66. Strada^ street. 



270 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Or ass o'erladen ! Must I rate man less 

Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness ? 

Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin !) 

The world of pain were better, if therein to 

One's heart might still be human, and desires 

Of natural pity drop upon its fires 

Some cooling tears." 

Thereat the pale monk crossed 
His brow, and, muttering, " Madman ! thou art lost ! " 
Took up his pyx and fled ; and left alone, 75 

The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan 
That sank into a prayer, " Thy will be done ! " 

Then was he made aware, by soul or ear, 
Of somewhat pure and holy bending o'er him, 
And of a voice like that of her who bore him, so 

Tender and most compassionate : " Never fear ! 
For heaven is love, as God himself is love ; 
Thy work below shall be thy work above." 
And when he looked, lo I in the stern monk's place 
He saw the shining of an angel's face ! ss 



The Traveller broke the pause. " I 've seen 
The Brothers down the long street steal, 

Black, silent, masked, the crowd between, 
And felt to doff my hat and kneel 

With heart, if not with knee, in prayer, 90 

For blessings on their pious care." 

86. The poem of The Brother of Mercy forms a part of The 
Tent on the Beach, in which Whittier pictures himself, the Trav- 
eller (Bayard Taylor), and the Man of Books (J. T. Fields), 
camping upon Salisbury beach and telling stories. 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEW ALL, 271 

THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. 

1697. 

[Samuel Sewall was one of a family notable in New Eng- 
land annals, and himself an eminent man in his generation. He 
was born in England in 1652, and was brought by his father to 
this country in 1661 ; but his father and grandfather were both 
pioneers in New England, and the family home was in New- 
bury, Massachusetts. Here Sewall spent his boyhood, but after 
graduating at Harvard he first essayed preaching, and then en- 
tered upon secular pursuits, becoming a member of the govern- 
ment and finally chief justice. He presided at the sad trial of 
witches, and afterward made public confession of his error in a 
noble paper which was read in church before the congregation 
and assented to by the judge, who stood alone as it was read 
and bowed at its conclusion. The paper is preserved in the first 
volume of the Diary of Samuel Sewall, published by the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. He was an upright man, of tender 
conscience and reverent mind. His character is well drawn by 
the poet in lines 13-20.] 

Up and down the village streets 

Strange are the forms my fancy meets, 

For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, 

And through the veil of a closed lid 

The ancient worthies I see again : s 

I hear the tap of the elder's cane, 

And his awful periwig I see, 

And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. 

Stately and slow, wdth thoughtful air. 

His black cap hiding his whitened hair, lo 

Walks the Judge of the great Assize, 

Samuel Sewall the good and wise. 

His face with lines of firmness wrought, 



272 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

He wears the look of a man unbought, 

Who swears to his hurt and changes not; m 

Yet, touched and softened nevertheless, 

With the grace of Christian gentleness, 

The face that a child would climb to kiss ! 

True and tender and brave and just. 

That man might honor and woman trust. 20 

Touching and sad, a tale is told. 

Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old. 

Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept 

With a haunting sorrow that never slept. 

As the circling year brought round the time 25 

Of an error that left the sting of crime. 

When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts 

With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports, 

And spake, in the name of both, the word 

That gave the witch's neck to the cord, 30 

And piled the oaken planks that pressed 

15. See Psalm xv. 4. 

23. It was the custom in Se wall's time for churches and indi- 
viduals to hold fasts whenever any public or private need sug- 
gested the fitness ; and as state and church were very closely 
connected, the General Court sometimes ordered a fast ; out of 
this custom sprang the annual fast in spring, now observed, but 
it is of comparatively recent date. Such a fast was ordered on 
the 14th of January, 1697, when Sewall made his special con- 
fession. He is said to have observed the day privately on each 
annual return thereafter. The custom still holds for churches 
to appoint their own fasts. 

28. Sir Matthew Hale, the great English judge, was a devout 
believer in the existence of witchcraft, and in 1645 a great num- 
ber of trials were held before him. The reports of those trials 
furnished precedents for Sewall and his court, not unassisted by 
the records in the Old Testament. 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEW ALL. 273 

The feeble life from the warlock's breast ! 

All the day long, from dawn to dawn, 

His door was bolted, his curtain drawn ; 

No foot on his silent threshold trod, 35 

No eye looked on him save that of God, 

As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms 

Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, 

And, with precious proofs from the sacred word 

Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, 40 

His faith confirmed and his trust renewed 

That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, 

Might be washed away in the mingled flood 

Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood ! 

Green forever the memory be 45 

Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, 
Whom even his errors glorified. 
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side 
hj the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide ! 
Honor and praise to the Puritan so 

Who the halting step of his age outran. 
And, seeing the infinite worth of man 
In the priceless gift the Father gave. 
In the infinite love that stooped to save. 
Dared not brand his brother a slave ! 55 

" Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say, 
In his own quaint, picture-loving way, 

55. In 1700 Sewall wrote a little tract of three pages on The 
Selling of Joseph, which has been characterized as " an acute, 
compact, powerful statement of the case against American slav- 
ery, leaving, indeed, almost nothing new to be said a century and 
a half afterward, when the sad thing came up for final adjust- 
ment." Reprinted in Mass. Hist. Society's Proceedings for 1863- 
1864, pp. 161-165. 



274 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade 
Which God shall cast down upon his head ! " 

Widely as heaven and hell, contrast so 

That brave old jurist of the past 
And the cunning trickster and knave of courts 
Who the holy features of Truth distorts, — 
Ruling as right the will of the strong, 
Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong ; 65 

Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak 
Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek ; 
Scoffing aside at party's nod 
Order of nature and law of God ; 
For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, 7o 
Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ; 
Justice of whom 't were vain to seek 
As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik. 
Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins ; 
Let him rot in the web of lies he spins ! 75 

To the saintly soul of the early day, 
To the Christian judge, let us turn and say : 
" Praise and thanks for an honest man ! — 
Glory to God for the Puritan ! " 

I see, far southward, this quiet day, so 

The hills of Newbury rolling away, 

With the many tints of the season gay, 

Dreamily blending in autumn mist 

Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. 

Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, 85 

67. There was an early belief that the Egyptians worshipped 
gods of leek, but it has been shown that the belief rose from cer- 
tain restrictions in the use of onions laid upon the priests, and 
from the offering of them as a part of sacrifice. 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. 275 

Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, 

A stone's toss over the narrow sound. 

Inland, as far as the eye can go, 

The hills curve round like a bended bow; 

A silver arrow from out them sprung, 90 

I see the shine of the Quasycung ; 

And, round and round, over valley and hill, 

Old roads winding, as old roads will. 

Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ; 

And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves, 95 

Through green elm arches and maple leaves, — 

Old homesteads sacred to all that can 

Gladden or sadden the heart of man, — 

Over whose threshold of oak and stone 

Life and Death have come and gone ! 100 

There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, 

Great beams sag from the ceiling low, 

The dresser glitters with polished wares, 

The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs. 

And the low, broad chimney shows the crack 105 

By the earthquake made a century back. 

Up from their midst springs the village spire 

With the crest of its cock in the sun afire ; 

Beyond are orchards and planting lands. 

And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, no 

And, where north and south the coastlines run, 

The blink of the sea in breeze and sun ! 

I see it all like a chart unrolled. 

But my thoughts are full of the past and old, 

I hear the tales of my boyhood told ; us 

And the shadows and shapes of early days 

Flit dimly by in the veiling haze. 

With measured movement and rhythmic chime 



276 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme. 

I think of the old man wise and good 120 

Who once on yon misty hillsides stood, 

(A poet who never measured rhyme, 

A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) 

And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, 

With his boyhood's love, on his native town, 125 

Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, 

His burden of prophecy yet remains. 

For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind 

To read in the ear of the musing mind ; — 

" As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast i3o 

As God appointed, shall keep its post ; 
As long as salmon shall haunt the deep 
Of Merrimack River, or sturgeon leap ; 
As long as pickerel swift and slim, 
Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim ; 135 

As long as the annual sea-fowl know 
Their time to come and their time to go ; 
As long as cattle shall roam at will 
The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill ; 
As long as sheep shall look from the side i40 

Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, 
And Parker River, and salt-sea tide ; 
As long as a wandering pigeon shall search 
The fields below from his white-oak perch. 
When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, 145 

124. As a matter of fact Sewall was forty-five years old when 
he uttered his prophecy. 

130. This prophecy in very rhythmic prose was first published 
in Se wall's Phcenomena Qucedam Apocalyptica. It will be found 
in Coffin's History of Newburyport, and in The Bodleys on Wheels^ 
pp. 207, 208. 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEW ALL. 277 

And the dry husks fall from the standing corn ; 

As long as Nature shall not grow old, 

Nor drop her work from her doting hold, 

And her care for the Indian corn forget, 

And the yellow rows in pairs to set ; — iso 

So long shall Christians here be born. 

Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn ! — 

By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, 

Shall never a holy ear be lost. 

But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight, 155 

Be sown again in the fields of light ! " 

The Island still is purple with plums, 

Up the river the salmon comes. 

The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds 

On hillside berries and raarish seeds, — leo 

All the beautiful signs remain, 

From spring-time sowing to autumn rain 

The good man's vision returns again ! 

And let us hope, as well we can. 

That the Silent Angel who garners man les 

May find some grain as of old he found 

In the human cornfield ripe and sound, 

And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own 

The precious seed by the fathers sown ! 



MAUD MULLER. 

Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 



278 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 6 

The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 

And a nameless longing filled her breast, — lo 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own. 
For something better than she had known. 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade m 

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid. 

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed 
Through the meadow across the road. 

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up. 
And filled for him her small tin cup, 20 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 

" Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 25 

Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 



MAUD MULLER. 279 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 

And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; so 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 

At last, like one who for delay- 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud MuUer looked and sighed : " Ah me ! 35 

That I the Judge's bride might be ! 

" He would dress me up in silks so fine. 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 

" My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
My brother should sail a painted boat. 40 

" I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
And the baby should have a new toy each day. 

" And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor. 
And all should bless me who left our door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hiU, 45 
And saw Maud Muller standing still. 

" A form more fair, a face more sweet. 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

" And her modest answer and graceful air 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 50 

*' Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay ; 



280 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

" No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

" But low of cattle and song of birds, cs 

And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, 
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 

And Maud was left in the field alone. eo 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon. 
When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 

And the young girl mused beside the well 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, es 

Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go ; 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 

Looked out in their innocent surprise. 70 

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red. 
He longed for the wayside well instead ; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms 
To dream of meadows and clover -blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 75 
" Ah, that I were free again I 



MAUD MULLER. 281 

" Free as when I rode that day, 
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 

And many children played round her door. so 

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 85 

Over the roadside, through the wall, 

In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein. 

And, gazing down with timid grace. 

She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 90 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls ; 

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, 
The tallow candle an astral burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 95 

Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw. 
And joy was duty and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again. 

Saying only, " It might have been." 100 



282 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 

For rich repiner and household drudge I 

God pity them both I and pity us all. 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, los 

The saddest are these : " It might have been ! " 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 

Roll the stone from its grave away ! no 

106. The exigencies of rhyme have a heavy burden to bear 
in this line. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 

"William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, 
Massachusetts, November 3, 1794 ; he died in New York, 
June 12, 1878. His first poem, The Embargo, was pub- 
lished in Boston in 1809, and was written when he was but 
thirteen years old ; his last poem, Our Fellow Worshippers, 
was published in 1878. His long life thus was a long 
career as a writer, and his first published poem prefigured 
the twofold character of his literary life, for while it was in 
poetic form it was more distinctly a political article. He 
showed very early a taste for poetry, and was encouraged 
to read and write verse by his father. Dr. Peter Bryant, a 
country physician of strong character and cultivated tastes. 
He was sent to WilHams College in the fall of 1810, where 
he remained two terms, when he decided to leave and enter 
Yale College ; but pecuniary troubles interfered with his 
plans, and he never completed his college course. He pur- 
sued his literary studies at home, then began the study of 
law and was admitted to the bar in 1815. Meantime he 
had been continuing to write, and during this period wrote 
with many corrections and changes the poem by which he 
is still perhaps best known, Thanatopsis. It was published 
in the North American Review for September, 1817, and 
the same periodical published a few months afterward his 
lines To a Waterfowl, one of the most characteristic and 
lovely of Bryant's poems. Literature divided his attention 
with law, but evidently had his heart. In 1821 he was 



284 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

invited to read a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
of Harvard College, and he read The Ages, a grave stately 
poem which shows his own poetic power, his familiarity 
with the great masters of literature, and his lofty, philoso- 
phic nature. Shortly after this he issued a small volume of 
poems, and his name began to be known as that of the first 
American who had written poetry that could take its place 
in universal literature. His own decided preference for lit- 
erature, and the encouragement of friends, led to his aban- 
donment of the law in 1825, and his removal to New York, 
where he undertook the associate editorship of The New 
York Review and AthencBum Magazine. Poetic genius is 
not caused or controlled by circumstance, but a purely liter- 
ary life in a country not yet educated in literature was 
impossible to a man of no other means of support, and in a 
few months, after the Review had vainly tried to maintain 
life by a frequent change of name, Bryant accepted an 
appointment as assistant editor of the Evening Post. From 
1826, then, until his death, Bryant was a journalist by pro- 
fession. One effect of this change in his life was to elimi- 
nate from his poetry that political character which was dis- 
played in his first published poem and had several times since 
shown itself. Thenceafter he threw into his journalistic 
occupation all those thoughts and experiences which made 
him by nature a patriot and political thinker ; he reserved 
for poetry the calm reflection, love of nature, and purity of 
aspiration which made him a poet. His editorial writing 
was made strong and pure by his cultivated taste and lofty 
ideals, but he presented the rare combination of a poet who 
never sacrificed his love of high literature and his devotion 
to art, and of a publicist who retained a sound judgment 
and pursued the most practical ends. 

His life outwardly was uneventful. He made four jour- 
neys to Europe, in 1834, 1845, 1852, 1857, and he made 
frequent tours in his own country. His observations on his 
travels were published in Letters from a Traveller, Letters 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 285 

from the East, and Letters from Spain and other Coun- 
tries. He never held public office, except that in 1860 he 
was a presidential elector, but he was connected intimately 
with important movements in society, literature, and politics, 
and was repeatedly called upon to deliver addresses com- 
memorative of eminent citizens, as o£ Washington Irving, 
and James Fenimore Cooper, and at the unveiling of the 
bust of Mazzini in the Central Park. His Orations and 
Addresses have been gathered into a volume. 

The bulk of his poetry apart from his poetic translations 
is not considerable, and is made up almost wholly of short 
poems which are chiefly inspired by his love of nature. R. 
H. Dana in his preface to The Idle Man says : " I shall 
never forget with what feeling my friend Bryant some 
years ago ^ described to me the effect produced upon him by 
his meeting for the first time with Wordsworth's Ballads. 
He lived, when quite young, where but few works of poetry 
were to be had ; at a period, too, when Pope was still the 
great idol of the Temple of Art. He said that upon open- 
ing Wordsworth a thousand springs seemed to gush up at 
once in his heart, and the face of nature of a sudden to 
change into a strange freshness and life." 

This was the interpreting power of Wordsworth suddenly 
disclosing to Bryant, not the secrets of nature, but his own 
powers of perception and interpretation. Bryant is in no 
sense an imitator of Wordsworth, but a comparison of the 
two poets would be of great interest as showing how indi- 
vidually each pursued the same general poetic end. Words- 
worth's Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower and 
Bryant's Fairest of the Rural Maids offer an admirable 
opportunity for disclosing the separate treatment of similar 
subjects. In Bryant's lines, musical and full of a gentle rev- 
ery, the poet seems to go deeper and deeper into the forest, 
almost forgetful of the " fairest of the rural maids ; " in 
Wordsworth's lines, with what simple yet profound feeling 

1 This was written in 1833. 



286 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

the poet, after delicately disclosing the interchange of nature 
and human life, returns into those depths of human sympa- 
thy where nature must forever remain as a remote shadow. 

Bryant translated many short poems from the Spanish, 
but his largest literary undertaking was the translation of 
the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. He brought to this task 
great requisite powers, and if there is any failure it is in the 
absence of Homer's lightness and rapidity, qualities which 
the elasticity of the Greek language especially favored. 

A pleasant touch of a simple humor appeared in some of 
his social addresses, and occasionally is found in his poems, 
as in Robert of Lincoln. Suggestions of personal experi- 
ence will be read in such poems as The Cloud on the Way, 
The Life that Is, and in the half -autobiographic poem, A 
Lifetime. 



SELLA. 

[Sella is the name given by the Vulgate to one of the 
wives of Lamech, mentioned in the fourth chapter of the 
Book of Genesis, and called Zillah in the common English 
version of the Bible. The meaning of the name is Shadow, 
and in choosing it the poet seems to have had no reference 
to the Biblical fact, but to the significance of the name, since 
he was telling of a creature who had the form without the 
substance of human kind. The story naturally suggests 
Fouqu^'s Undine, and is in some respects a complement to 
that lovely romance. Undine is a water-nymph without a 
soul, who gains one only by marrying a human being, and 
in marrying tastes of the sorrows of life. Sella is of the 
human race, gifted with a soul, but having a longing for 
life among the water-nymphs. That life withdraws her 
from the troubles and cares of the world, and she loses more 
and more her interest in them ; when at last she is rudely 
cut off from sharing in the water-nymphs' life, is awakened 
as it were from a dream of beauty, she returns to the world 
after a brief struggle, mingles with it, and makes the know- 
ledge gained among the water-nymphs minister to the needs 
of men. 

The story must not be probed too ingeniously for its 
moral ; it is an exquisite fairy tale, but like many of such 
tales it involves a gentle parable, which has been hinted at 
above. If a more explicit interpretation is desired, we may 
say that the passion for ideals, gradually withdrawing one 
from human sympathy, is made finally to ennoble and lift 
real life. The poet has not localized the poem nor given it 
a specific time, but left himself and the reader free by using 
the large terms of nature and human life, and referring the 



288 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

action to the early, formative period of the world. Observe 
Bryant's delicate and accurate transcriptions of faint charac- 
teristics of nature, as in lines 8, 12, 30, 35, 41, 215, 238, 
389.] 

Hear novsr a legend of the days of old — 
The days when there were goodly marvels yet, 
When man to man gave willing faith, and loved 
A tale the better that 't was wild and strange. 

Beside a pleasant dwelling ran a brook 5 

Scudding along a narrow channel, paved 
With green and yellow pebbles ; yet full clear 
Its waters were, and colorless and cool, 
As fresh from granite rocks. A maiden oft 
Stood at the open window, leaning out, lo 

And listening to the sound the water made, 
A sweet, eternal murmur, still the same, 
And not the same ; and oft, as spring came on. 
She gathered violets from its fresh moist bank, 
To place within her bower, and when the herbs is 

Of summer drooped beneath the mid-day sun, 
She sat within the shade of a great rock. 
Dreamily listening to the streamlet's song. 

Ripe were the maiden's years ; her stature showed 
Womanly beauty, and her clear, calm eye 20 

Was bright with venturous spirit, yet her face 
Was passionless, like those by sculptor graved 
For niches in a temple. Lovers oft 
Had wooed her, but she only laughed at love, 
And wondered at the silly things they said. 25 

'T was her delight to wander where wild vines 
O'erhang the river's brim, to climb the path 

11. Observe the various suggestions in the early lines of the 
poem of Sella's sympathy with water life. 



SELLA. 289 

Of woodland streamlet to its mountain springs, 

To sit by gleaming wells and mark below 

The image of the rushes on its edge, 30 

And, deep beyond, the trailing clouds that slid 

Across the fair blue space. No little fount 

Stole forth from hanging rock, or in the side 

Of hollow dell, or under roots of oak. 

No rill came trickling, with a stripe of green, 35 

Down the bare hill, that to this maiden's eyes 

Was not familiar. Often did the banks 

Of river or of sylvan lakelet hear 

The dip of oars with which the maiden rowed 

Her shallop, pushing ever from the prow 40 

A crowd of long, light ripples toward the shore. 

Two brothers had the maiden, and she thought, 
Within herself : " I would I were like them ; 
For then I might go forth alone, to trace 
The mighty rivers downward to the sea, 45 

And upward to the brooks that, through the year, 
Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know 
What races drink their waters ; how their chiefs 
Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how 
They build, and to what quaint device they frame, 50 
Where sea and river meet, their stately ships ; 
What flowers are in their gardens, and what trees 
Bear fruit within their orchards ; in what garb 
Their bowmen meet on holidays, and how 
Their maidens bind the waist and braid the hair. 55 
Here, on these hills, my father's house o'erlooks 
Broad pastures grazed by flocks and herds, but there 
I hear they sprinkle the great plains with corn 

31. The clouds which she sees deep beyond are of course the 
reflection of the clouds passing over the well, as it is not the 
rushes but the image of the rushes which she sees in the water. 



290 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And watch its springing up, and when the green 

Is changed to gold, they cut the stems and bring eo 

The harvest in, and give the nations bread. 

And there they hew the quarry into shafts, 

And pile up glorious temples from the rock, 

And chisel the rude stones to shapes of men. 

All this I pine to see, and would have seen, es 

But that I am a woman, long ago." 

Thus in her wanderings did the maiden dream. 
Until, at length, one morn in early spring. 
When all the glistening fields lay white with frost. 
She came half breathless where her mother sat : to 

" See, mother dear," said she, " what I have found, 
Upon our rivulet's bank ; two slippers, white 
As the mid- winter snow, and spangled o'er 
With twinkling points, like stars, and on the edge 
My name is wrought in silver ; read, I pray, 75 

Sella, the name thy mother, now in heaven. 
Gave at my birth ; and sure, they fit my feet ! " 
" A dainty pair," the prudent matron said, 
" But thine they are not. We must lay them by 
For those whose careless hands have left them here ; so 
Or haply they were placed beside the brook 
To be a snare. I cannot see thy name 

72. The reader will recall instances of the magical or trans- 
forming character of slippers and the like : Mercury with his 
winged sandals, Cinderella with her glass slippers, the seven 
leagued boots, Puss in boots. A covering for the head is con- 
nected with the power of command and the power of invisibil- 
ity : a covering for the foot with magical power of motion. 

82. In the mother's inability to read Bella's name on the slip- 
per is suggested that unimaginative nature which is so often rep- 
resented in fairy tales for a foil to the imagination. Hawthorne 
has used this open-eyed blindness with excellent effect in his 
story of the Snow Image. 



SELLA. 291 

Upon the border, — only characters 

Of mystic look and dim are there, like signs 

Of some strange art ; nay, daughter, wear them 

not." 85 

Then Sella hung the slippers in the porch 
Of that broad rustic lodge, and all who passed 
Admired their fair contexture, but none knew 
Who left them by the brook. And now, at length, 
May, with her flowers and singing birds, had gone, 90 
And on bright streams and into deep wells shone 
The high, mid-summer sun. One day, at noon. 
Sella was missed from the accustomed meal. 
They sought her in her favorite haunts, they looked 
By the great rock, and far along the stream, 95 

And shouted in the sounding woods her name. 
Night came, and forth the sorrowing household went 
With torches over the wide pasture-grounds 
To pool and thicket, marsh and briery dell. 
And solitary valley far away. 100 

The morning came, and Sella was not found. 
The sun climbed high ; they sought her still ; the 

noon. 
The hot and silent noon, heard Sella's name, 
Uttered with a despairing cry, to wastes 
O'er which the eagle hovered. As the sun 105 

Stooped toward the amber west to bring the close 
Of that sad second day, and, with red eyes. 
The mother sat within her home alone. 
Sella was at her side. A shriek of joy 
Broke the sad silence ; glad, warm tears were shed, no 
And words of gladness uttered. " Oh, forgive," 
The maiden said, " that I could e'er forget 
Thy wishes for a moment. I just tried 
The slippers on, amazed to see them shaped 



292 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

So fairly to my feet, when, all at once, ns 

I felt my steps upborne and hurried on 

Almost as if with wings. A strange delight, 

Blent with a thrill of fear, o'ermastered me, 

And, ere I knew, my plashing steps were set 

Within the rivulet's pebbly bed, and I i2n 

Was rushing down the current. By my side 

Tripped one as beautiful as ever looked 

From white clouds in a dream ; and, as we ran. 

She talked with musical voice and sweetly laughed. 

Gayly we leaped the crag and swam the pool, 125 

And swept with dimpling eddies round the rock, 

And glided between shady meadow banks. 

The streamlet, broadening as we went, became 

A swelling river, and we shot along 

By stately towns, and under leaning masts iso 

Of gallant barks, nor lingered by the shore 

Of blooming gardens ; onward, onward still. 

The same strong impulse bore me till, at last, 

We entered the great deep, and passed below 

His billows, into boundless spaces, lit 135 

With a green sunshine. Here were mighty groves 

Far down the ocean valleys, and between 

Lay what might seem fair meadows, softly tinged 

With orange and with crimson. Here arose 

Tall stems, that, rooted in the depths below, wo 

Swung idly with the motions of the sea ; 

And here were shrubberies in whose mazy screen 

The creatures of the deep made haunt. My friend 

Named the strange growths, the pretty coralline. 

The dulse with crimson leaves, and streaming far, 145 

Sea-thong and sea-lace. Here the tangle spread 

Its broad, thick fronds, with pleasant bowers beneath; 

And oft we trod a waste of pearly sands, 



SELLA. 293 

Spotted with rosy shells, and thence looked in 

At caverns of the sea whose rock-roofed halls i50 

Lay in blue twilight. As we moved along, 

The dwellers of the deep, in mighty herds, 

Passed by us, reverently they passed us by. 

Long trains of dolphins rolling through the brine. 

Huge whales, that drew the waters after them, 155 

A torrent stream, and hideous hammer-sharks, 

Chasing their prey. I shuddered as they came ; 

Gently they turned aside and gave us room." 

Hereat broke in the mother, " Sella, dear, 
This is a dream, the idlest, vainest dream." iso 

" Nay, mother, nay ; behold this sea-green scarf, 
Woven of such threads as never human hand 
Twined from the distaff. She who led my way 
Through the great waters bade me wear it home, 
A token that my tale is true. ' And keep,' les 

She said, ' the slippers thou hast found, for thou, 
When shod wdth them, shalt be like one of us, 
With power to walk at will the ocean-floor. 
Among its monstrous creatures, unafraid. 
And feel no longing for the air of heaven 170 

To fill thy lungs, and send the warm, red blood 
Along thy veins. But thou shalt pass the hours 
in dances with the sea-nymphs, or go forth. 
To look into the mysteries of the abyss 
Where never plummet reached. And thou shalt sleep 
Thy weariness away on downy banks i76 

Of sea-moss, where the pulses of the tide 
Shall gently lift thy hair, or thou shalt float 
On the soft currents that go forth and wind 
From isle to isle, and wander through the sea.' iso 

" So spake my fellow- voyager, her words 
Sounding like wavelets on a summer shore, 



294 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And then we stopped beside a hanging rock 
With a smooth beach of white sands at its foot, 
Where three fair creatures like herself were set iss 
At their sea-banquet, crisp and juicy stalks. 
Culled from the ocean's meadows, and the sweet 
Midrib of pleasant leaves, and golden fruits. 
Dropped from the trees that edge the southern isles, 
And gathered on the waves. Kindly they prayed i90 
That I would share their meal, and I partook 
With eager appetite, for long had been 
My journey, and I left the spot refreshed. 

" And then we wandered off amid the groves 
Of coral loftier than the growths of earth ; 195 

The mightiest cedar lifts no trunk like theirs, 
So huge, so high, toward heaven, nor overhangs 
Alleys and bowers so dim. We moved between 
Pinnacles of black rock, which, from beneath, 
Molten by inner fires, so said my guide, 200 

Gushed long ago into the hissing brine, 
That quenched and hardened them, and now they 

stand 
Motionless in the currents of the sea 
That part and flow around them. As we went, 
We looked into the hollows of the abyss, 205 

To which the never-resting waters sweep 
The skeletons of sharks, the long white spines 
Of narwhale and of dolphin, bones of men 
Shipwrecked, and mighty ribs of foundered barks. 
Down the blue pits we looked, and hastened on. 210 

" But beautiful the fountains of the sea 
Sprang upward from its bed ; the silvery jets 
Shot branching far into the azure brine. 
And where they mingled with it, the great deep 
Quivered and shook, as shakes the glimmering air 215 



SELLA. 295 

Above a furnace. So we wandered through 
The mighty world of waters, till at length 
I wearied of its wonders, and my heart 
Began to yearn for my dear mountain home. 
I prayed my gentle guide to lead me back 220 

To the upper air. ' A glorious realm,' I said, 
' Is this thou openest to me ; but I stray 
Bewildered in its vastness ; these strange sights 
And this strange light oppress me. I must see 
The faces that I love, or I shall die.' 225 

" She took my hand, and, darting through the 
waves, 
Brought me to where the stream, by which we came, 
Rushed into the main ocean. Then began 
A slov/er journey upward. Wearily 
We breasted the strong current, climbing through 230 
The rapids tossing high their foam. The night 
Came down, and, in the clear depth of a pool, 
Edged with o'erhanging rock, we took our rest 
Till morning ; and I slept, and dreamed of home 
And thee. A pleasant sight the morning showed ; 235 
The green fields of this upper world, the herds 
That grazed the bank, the light on the red clouds. 
The trees, with all their host of trembling leaves, 
Lifting and lowering to the restless wind 
Their branches. As I awoke I saw them all 240 

From the clear stream ; yet strangely was my heart 
Parted between the watery world and this, 
And as we journeyed upward, oft I thought 
Of marvels I had seen, and stopped and turned, 

224. How very often in fairy tales the human being has but 
to exercise the will to attain or to renounce the fairy power ! It 
is only when one is under a spell, in the classic fairy tales, that 
the will is not recognized as the supreme authority. 



296 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And lingered, till I thought of thee again ; 245 

And then again I turned and clambered up 

The rivulet's murmuring path, until we came 

Beside this cottage door. There tenderly 

My fair conductor kissed me, and I saw 

Her face no more. I took the slippers off. 250 

Oh ! with what deep delight my lungs drew in 

The air of heaven again, and with what joy 

I felt my blood bound with its former glow ; 

And now I never leave thy side again." 

So spoke the maiden Sella, with large tears 255 

Standing in her mild eyes, and in the porch 
Replaced the slippers. Autumn came and went ; 
The winter passed ; another summer warmed 
The quiet pools ; another autumn tinged 
The grape with red, yet while it hung unplucked, 26O 
The mother ere her time was carried forth 
To sleep among the solitary hills. 

A long still sadness settled on that home 
Among the mountains. The stern father there 
Wept with his children, and grew soft of heart, 265 
And Sella, and the brothers twain, and one 
Younger than they, a sister fair and shy. 
Strewed the new grave with flowers, and round it set 
Shrubs that all winter held their lively green. 
Time passed ; the grief with which their hearts were 
wrung 270 

Waned to a gentle sorrow. Sella, now. 
Was often absent from the patriarch's board ; 
The slippers hung no longer in the porch ; 
And sometimes after summer nights her couch 

245. The hurnanizing of the character of Sella is effected by 
such touches as this. 



SELLA. 297 

Was found unpressed at dawn, and well they knew 275 

That she was wandering with the race who make 

Their dwelling in the waters. Oft her looks 

Fixed on blank space, and oft the ill-suited word 

Told that her thoughts were far away. In vain 

Her brothers reasoned with her tenderly. 280 

" Oh leave not thus thy kindred ; " so they prayed : 

" Dear Sella, now that she who gave us birth 

Is in her grave, oh go not hence, to seek 

Companions in that strange cold realm below, 

For which God made not us nor thee, but stay 235 

To be the grace and glory of our home." 

She looked at them with those mild eyes and wept. 

But said no word in answer, nor refrained 

From those mysterious wanderings that filled 

Their loving hearts with a perpetual pain. 290 

And now the younger sister, fair and shy, 
Had grown to early womanhood, and one 
Who loved her well had wooed her for his bride. 
And she had named the wedding day. The herd 
Had given its f atlings for the marriage feast ; 295 

The roadside garden and the secret glen 
Were rifled of their sweetest flowers to twine 
The door posts, and to lie among the locks 
Of maids, the wedding guests ; and from the boughs 
Of mountain orchards had the fairest fruit 300 

Been plucked to glisten in the canisters. 

Then, trooping over hill and valley, came 
Matron and maid, grave men and smiling youths, 
Like swallows gathering for their autumn flight. 
In costumes of that simpler age they came, 30.5 

That gave the limbs large play, and wrapt the form 
In easy folds, yet bright with glowing hues 
As suited holidays. All hastened on 



298 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

To that glad bridal. There already stood 

The priest prepared to say the spousal rite, sio 

And there the harpers in due order sat, 

And there the singers. Sella, midst them all, 

Moved strangely and serenely beautiful. 

With clear blue eyes, fair locks, and brow and cheek 

Colorless as the lily of the lakes, 315 

Yet moulded to such shape as artists give 

To beings of immortal youth. Her hands 

Had decked her sister for the bridal hour 

With chosen flowers, and lawn whose delicate threads 

Vied with the spider's spinning. There she stood 320 

With such a gentle pleasure in her looks 

As might beseem a river-nymph's soft eyes 

Gracing a bridal of the race whose flocks 

Were pastured on the borders of her stream. 

She smiled, but from that calm sweet face the 
smile 325 

Was soon to pass away. That very morn 
The elder of the brothers, as he stood 
Upon the hillside, had beheld the maid, 
Emerging from the channel of the brook. 
With three fresh water lilies in her hand, 330 

Wring dry her dripping locks, and in a cleft 
Of hanging rock, beside a screen of boughs. 
Bestow the spangled slippers. None before 
Had known where Sella hid them. Then she laid 
The light brown tresses smooth, and in them twined 335 
The lily buds, and hastily drew forth 
And threw across her shoulders a light robe 

322. The gentle turning-point of the poem. For a moment 
the Sella of her dreams stands before us ; the idealizing of the 
human creature has been carried to its finest limit, and is ar- 
rested now just short of the disappearance of the human soul. 



SELLA. 299 

Wrought for tlie bridal, and with bounding steps 
Ean toward the lodge. The youth beheld and marked 
The spot and slowly followed from afar. 340 

Now had the marriage rite been said ; the bride 
Stood in the blush that from her burning cheek 
Glowed down the alabaster neck, as morn 
Crimsons the pearly heaven halfway to the west. 
At once the harpers struck their chords ; a gush 345 
Of music broke upon the air ; the youths 
All started to the dance. Among them moved 
The queenly Sella with a grace that seemed 
Caught from the swaying of the summer sea. 
The young drew forth the elders to the dance, 350 

Who joined it half abashed, but when they felt 
The joyous music tingling in their veins, 
They called for quaint old measures, which they trod 
As gayly as in youth, and far abroad 
Came through the open windows cheerful shouts 355 
And bursts of laughter. They who heard the sound 
Upon the mountain footpaths paused and said, 
" A merry wedding." Lovers stole away 
That sunny afternoon to bowers that edged 
The garden walks, and what was whispered there 36o 
The lovers of these later times can guess. 

Meanwhile the brothers, when the merry din 
Was loudest, stole to where the slippers lay. 
And took them thence, and followed down the brook 
To where a little rapid rushed between 365 

Its borders of smooth rock, and dropped them in. 
The rivulet, as they touched its face, flung up 
Its small bright waves like hands, and seemed to take 
The prize with eagerness and draw it down. 
They, gleaming through the waters as they went, 370 
And striking with light sound the shining stones. 



300 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Slid down the stream. The brothers looked and 

watched 
And listened with full beating hearts, till now 
The sight and sound had passed, and silently 
And half repentant hastened to the lodge. 375 

The sun was near his set ; the music rang 
Within the dwelling still, but the mirth waned ; 
For groups of guests were sauntering toward their 

homes 
Across the fields, and far, on hillside paths. 
Gleamed the white robes of maidens. Sella grew sso 
Weary of the long merriment ; she thought 
Of her still haunts beneath the soundless sea, 
And all unseen withdrew and sought the cleft 
Where she had laid the slippers. They were gone. 
She searched the brookside near, yet found them not. 
Then her heart sank within her, and she ran 386 

Wildly from place to place, and once again 
She searched the secret cleft, and next she stooped 
And with spread palms felt carefully beneath 
The tufted herbs and bushes, and again, 390 

And yet again she searched the rocky cleft. 
" Who could have taken them ? " That question 

cleared 
The mystery. She remembered suddenly 
That when the dance was in its gayest whirl, 
Her brothers were not seen, and when, at length, 395 
They reappeared, the elder joined the sports 
With shouts of boisterous mirth, and from her eye 
The younger shrank in silence. " Now, I know 
The guilty ones," she said, and left the spot. 
And stood before the youths with such a look 400 

Of anguish and reproach that well they knew 
Her thought, and almost wished the deed undone. 



SELLA. 301 

Frankly they owned the charge : " And pardon us ; 
We did it all in love ; we could not bear 
That the cold world of waters and the strange 405 

Beings that dwell within it should beguile 
Our sister from us." Then they told her all; 
How they had seen her stealthily bestow ' 

The slippers in the cleft, and how by stealth 
They took them thence and bore them down the brook, 
And dropped them in, and how the eager waves 411 
Gathered and drew them down : but at that word 
The maiden shrieked — a broken-hearted shriek — 
And all who heard it shuddered and turned pale 
At the despairing cry, and " They are gone," 415 

She said, " gone — gone forever. Cruel ones ! 
'T is you who shut me out eternally 
From that serener world which I had learned 
To love so well. Why took ye not my life ? 
Ye cannot know what ye have done." She spake, 420 
And hurried to her chamber, and the guests 
Who yet had lingered silently withdrew. 

The brothers followed to the maiden's bower, 
But with a calm demeanor, as they came. 
She met them at the door. " The wrong is great," 425 
She said, " that ye have done me, but no power 
Have ye to make it less, nor yet to soothe 
My sorrow ; I shall bear it as I may, 
The better for the hours that I have passed 
In the calm region of the middle sea. 430 

Go, then. I need you not." They, overawed, 
Withdrew from that grave presence. Then her tears 
Broke forth a flood, as when the August cloud. 
Darkening beside the mountain, suddenly 
Melts into streams of rain. That weary night 435 

She paced her chamber, murmuring as she walked. 



302 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

" O peaceful region of the middle sea I 

azure bowers and grots, in which I loved 
To roam and rest ! Am I to long for you, 

And think how strangely beautiful ye are, 440 

Yet never see you more ? And dearer yet. 
Ye gentle ones in whose sweet company 

1 trod the shelly pavements of the deep, 

And swam its currents, creatures with calm eyes 

Looking the tenderest love, and voices soft 445 

As ripple of light waves along the shore. 

Uttering the tenderest words ! Oh ! ne'er again 

Shall I, in your mild aspects, read the peace 

That dwells within, and vainly shall I pine 

To hear your sweet low voices. Haply now 450 

Ye miss me in your deep-sea home, and think 

Of me with pity, as of one condemned 

To haunt this upper world, with its harsh sounds 

And glaring lights, its withering heats, its frosts, 

Cruel and killing, its delirious strifes, 455 

And all its feverish passions, till I die." 

So mourned she the long night, and when the morn 
Brightened the mountains, from her lattice looked 
The maiden on a world that was to her 
A desolate and dreary waste. That day 46o 

She passed in wandering by the brook that oft 
Had been her pathway to the sea, and still 
Seemed, with its cheerful murmur, to invite 
Her footsteps thither. " Well may'st thou rejoice, 
Fortunate stream ! " she said, " and dance along 465 
Thy bed, and make thy course one ceaseless strain 
Of music, for thou journeyest toward the deep, 
To which I shall return no more." The night 
Brought her to her lone chamber, and she knelt 
And prayed, with many tears, to Him whose hand 470 



SELLA. 303 

Touches the wounded heart and it is healed. 
With prayer there came new thoughts and new de- 
sires. 
She asked for patience and a deeper love 
For those with whom her lot was henceforth cast, 
And that in acts of mercy she might lose 475 

The sense of her own sorrow. When she rose 
A weight was lifted from her heart. She sought 
Her couch, and slept a long and peaceful sleep. 
At morn she woke to a new life. Her days 
Henceforth were given to quiet tasks of good 48o 

In the great world. Men hearkened to her words. 
And wondered at their wisdom and obeyed, 
And saw how beautiful the law of love 
Can make the cares and toils of daily life. 

Still did she love to haunt the springs and brooks, 
As in her cheerful childhood, and she taught 486 

The skill to pierce the soil and meet the veins 
Of clear cold water winding underneath, 
And call them forth to daylight. From afar 
She bade men bring the rivers on long rows 490 

Of pillared arches to the sultry town. 
And on the hot air of the summer fling 
The spray of dashing fountains. To relieve 
Their weary hands, she showed them how to tame 494 
The rushing stream, and make him drive the wheel 
That whirls the humming millstone and that wields 
The ponderous sledge. The waters of the cloud, 
That drench the hillside in the time of rains. 
Were gathered at her bidding into pools, 

479. In the new life to which Sella awakes, one notes that it 
is the old world in which she had lived endowed now with those 
gifts which her ripened soul brought from the ideal world in 
which she had hoped to lose herself. 



304 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And in the months of drought led forth again, 500 

In glimmering rivulets, to refresh the vales. 
Till the sky darkened with returning showers. 
So passed her life, a long and blameless life, 
And far and near her name was named with love 
And reverence. Still she kept, as age came on, sos 
Her stately presence ; still her eyes looked forth 
From under their calm brows as brightly clear 
As the transparent wells by which she sat 
So oft in childhood. Still she kept her fair 
Un wrinkled features, though her locks were white, sio 
A hundred times had summer, since her birth. 
Opened the water lily on the lakes. 
So old traditions tell, before she died. 
A hundred cities mourned her, and her death 
Saddened the pastoral valleys. By the brook, 515 

That bickering ran beside the cottage door 
Where she was born, they reared her monument. 
Ere long the current parted and flowed round 
The marble base, forming a little isle, 
And there the flowers that love the running stream, 520 
Iris and orchis, and the cardinal flower. 
Crowded and hung caressingly around 
The stone engraved with Sella's honored name. 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 

[In this tender fancy Bryant has treated the personality 
of the snow with a kinder, more sympathetic touch than 
poets have been wont to give it. With many the cruelty of 
cold or its treacherous nature is most significant. Hans 
Christian Andersen, for example, in the story of The Ice 
Maiden has taken a similar theme, but has emphasized the 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 305 

seductive treachery of the Spirit of Cold. Here Bryant has 
given the true fairy, innocent of evil purpose, yet inflicting 
grievous wrong through its nature ; sorrowing over the dead 
Eva, but without the remorse of human beings. The time 
of the story is placed in legendary antiquity by the exclu- 
sion of historic times in lines 35-41, and the antiquity is 
still more positively affirmed by the lines at the close ac- 
counting for our not now seeing the Little People of the 
Snow. The children had asked for a fairy tale, and it is 
made more real by being placed at so ethereal a distance.] 

Alice. One of your old world stories, Uncle John, 
Such as you tell us by the winter fire. 
Till we all wonder it has grown so late. 

Uncle John. The story of the witch that ground 
to death 
Two children in her mill, or will you have 5 

The tale of Goody Cutpurse ? 

Alice. Nay now, nay ; 

Those stories are too childish, Uncle John, 
Too childish even for little Willy here. 
And I am older, two good j^ears, than he ; 
No, let us have a tale of elves that ride 10 

By night with jingling reins, or gnomes of the mine. 
Or water-fairies, such as you know how 
To spin, till Willy's eyes forget to wink, 
And good Aunt Mary, busy as she is. 
Lays down her knitting. 

Uncle John. Listen to me, then. is 

'T was in the olden time, long, long ago. 
And long before the great oak at our door 

6, Goody Cut-purse, or Moll Cut-purse, was a famous high- 
way woman of Shakspere's time who robbed people as auda- 
ciously as did Jack Sheppard. 



306 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Was yet an acorn, on a mountain's side 
Lived, with his wife, a cottager. They dwelt 
Beside a gien and near a dashing brook, 20 

A pleasant spot in spring, where first the wren 
Was heard to chatter, and, among the grass. 
Flowers opened earliest ; but, when winter came, 
That little brook was fringed with other flowers, — 
White flowers, with crystal leaf and stem, that grew 
In clear November nights. And, later still, 26 

That mountain glen was filled with drifted snows 
From side to side, that one might walk across, 
While, many a fathom deep, below, the brook 
Sang to itself, and leapt and trotted on so 

Unfrozen, o'er its pebbles, toward the vale. 

Alice. A mountain's side, you said ; the Alps, per- 
haps, 
Or our own Alleghanies. 

Uncle John. Not so fast. 

My young geographer, for then the Alps, 
With their broad pastures, haply were untrod 35 

Of herdsman's foot, and never human voice 
Had sounded in the woods that overhang 
Our Alleghany's streams. I think it was 
Upon the slopes of the great Caucasus, 
Or where the rivulets of Ararat 40 

Seek the Armenian vales. That mountain rose 
So high, that, on its top, the winter snow 
Was never melted, and the cottagers 
Among the summer blossoms, far below. 
Saw its white peaks in August from their door. 45 

One little maiden, in that cottage home, 
Dwelt with her parents, light of heart and limb, 
Bright, restless, thoughtless, flitting here and there 
Like sunshine on the uneasy ocean waves, 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 307 

And sometimes she forgot what she was bid, 50 

As Alice does. 

Alice. Or Willy, quite as oft. 

Uncle John, But you are older, Alice, two good 
years, 
And should be wiser. Eva was the name 
Of this young maiden, now twelve summers old. 

Now you must know that, in those early times, 55 
When autumn days grew pale, there came a troop 
Of childlike forms from that cold mountain top ; 
With trailing garments through the air they came. 
Or walked the ground with girded loins, and threw 
Spangles of silvery frost upon the grass, eo 

And edged the brook with glistening parapets. 
And built it crystal bridges, touched the pool. 
And turned its face to glass, or, rising thence. 
They shook, from their full laps, the soft, light snow. 
And buried the great earth, as autumn winds es 

Bury the forest floor in heaps of leaves. 

A beautiful race were they, with baby brows. 
And fair, bright locks, and voices like the sound 
Of steps on the crisp snow, in which they talked 
With man, as friend with friend. A merry sight 70 
It was, when, crowding round the traveller. 
They smote him with their heaviest snow-flakes, flung 
Needles of frost in handfuls at his cheeks. 
And, of the light wreaths of his smoking breath. 
Wove a white fringe for his brown beard, and 
laughed 75 

Their slender laugh to see him wink and grin 
And make grim faces as he floimdered on. 

But, when the spring came on, what terror reigned 
Among these Little People of the Snow ! 
To them the sun's warm beams were shafts of fire, so 



308 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

And the soft south-wind was the wind of death. 

Away they flew, all with a pretty scowl 

Upon their childish faces, to the north. 

Or scampered upward to the mountain's top, 

And there defied their enemy, the Spring ; 85 

Skipping and dancing on the frozen peaks. 

And moulding little snow-balls in their palms, 

And rolling them, to crush her flowers below, 

Down the steep snow-fields. 

Alice, That, too, must have been 

A merry sight to look at. 

Uncle John, You are right, 90 

But I must speak of graver matters now. 

Mid-winter was the time, and Eva stood 
Within the cottage, all prepared to dare 
The outer cold, with ample furry robe 
Close belted round her waist, and boots of fur, 95 

And a broad kerchief, which her mother's hand 
Had closely drawn about her ruddy cheek. 
"Now, stay not long abroad," said the good dame, 
" For sharp is the outer air, and, mark me well. 
Go not upon the snow beyond the spot 100 

Where the great linden bounds the neighboring 
field." 

The little maiden promised, and went forth, 
And climbed the rounded snow-swells firm with frost 
Beneath her feet, and slid, with balancing arms, 
Into the hollows. Once, as up a drift 105 

She slowly rose, before her, in the way, 
She saw a little creature lily-cheeked. 
With flowing flaxen locks, and faint blue eyes. 
That gleamed like ice, and robe that only seemed 
Of a more shadowy whiteness than her cheek. no 

On a smooth bank she sat. 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 309 

Alice. She must have been 

One of your Little People of the Snow. 

Uncle John, She was so, and, as Eva now drew 
near, 
The tiny creature bounded from her seat ; 
"And come," she said, "my pretty friend; to-day ns 
We will be playmates. I have watched thee long. 
And seen how well thou lov'st to walk these drifts, 
And scoop their fair sides into little cells, 
And carve them with quaint figures, huge-limbed men. 
Lions, and griffins. We will have, to-day, 120 

A merry ramble over these bright fields. 
And thou shalt see what thou hast never seen." 

On went the pair, until they reached the bound 
Where the great linden stood, set deep in snow, 
Up to the lower branches. " Here we stop," 125 

Said Eva, " for my mother has my word 
That I will go no farther than this tree." 
Then the snow-maiden laughed ; " And what is this ? 
This fear of the pure snow, the innocent snow. 
That never harmed aught living? Thou may'st 
roam 130 

For leagues beyond this garden, and return 
In safety ; here the grim wolf never prowls, 
And here the eagle of our mountain crags 
Preys not in winter. I will show the way 
And bring thee safely home. Thy mother, sure, 135 
Counselled thee thus because thou hadst no guide." 

By such smooth words was Eva won to break 

137. The idea of sin is very lightly touched in the poem, and 
there is no conscious temptation to evil on the part of the Snow- 
maiden. The absence of a moral sense in the Little People of 
the Snow is very delicately assumed here. It is with fairies 
that the poet is dealing, and not with diminutive human beings. 



310 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Her promise, and went on with her new friend, 
Over the glistening snow and down a bank 
Where a white shelf, wrought by the eddying 
wind, 140 

Like to a billow's crest in the great sea. 
Curtained an opening. " Look, we enter here." 
And straight, beneath the fair o'erhanging fold. 
Entered the little pair that hill of snow. 
Walking along a passage with white walls, 145 

And a white vault above where snow-stars shed 
A wintry twilight. Eva moved in awe. 
And held her peace, but the snow-maiden smiled. 
And talked and tripped along, as, down the way. 
Deeper they went into that mountainous drift. iso 

And now the white walls widened, and the vault 
Swelled upward, like some vast cathedral dome, 
Such as the Florentine, who bore the name 
Of Heaven's most potent angel, reared, long since. 
Or the unknown builder of that wondrous fane, iss 
The glory of Burgos. Here a garden lay, 
In which the Little People of the Snow 
Were wont to take their pastime when their tasks 
Upon the mountain's side and in the clouds 
Were ended. Here they taught the silent frost leo 
To mock, in stem and spray, and leaf and flower, 
The growths of summer. Hear the palm upreared 
Its white columnar trunk and spotless sheaf 
Of plume-like leaves ; here cedars, huge as those 

146. The star form of the snow-crystal gives a peculiar truth- 
fulness to the poet's fancy. 

154. Michael Angelo, the great Florentine architect, sculptor, 
and painter. 

156. In Bryant's Letters of a Traveller, second series, will be 
found an account of Burgos Cathedral. 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 311 

Of Lebanon, stretched far their level boughs, i65 

Yet pale and shadowless ; the sturdy oak 
Stood, with its huge gnarled roots of seeming strength, 
Fast anchored in the glistening bank ; light sprays 
Of myrtle, roses in their bud and bloom. 
Drooped by the winding walks ; yet all seemed 
wrought 170 

Of stainless alabaster ; up the trees 
Ran the lithe jessamine, with stalk and leaf 
Colorless as her flowers. " Go softly on," 
Said the snow-maiden ; " touch not, with thy hand, 
The frail creation round thee, and beware 175 

To sweep it with thy skirts. Now look above. 
How sumptuously these bowers are lighted up 
With shifting gleams that softly come and go ! 
These are the northern lights, such as thou seest 
In the midwinter nights, cold, wandering flames, iso 
That float, with our processions, through the air ; 
And, here within our winter palaces. 
Mimic the glorious daybreak." Then she told 
How, when the wind, in the long winter nights. 
Swept the light snows into the hollow dell, iss 

She and her comrades guided to its place 
Each wandering flake, and piled them quaintly up. 
In shapely colonnade and glistening arch. 
With shadowy aisles between, or bade them grow 
Beneath their little hands, to bowery walks 190 

In gardens such as these, and, o'er them all. 
Built the broad roof. " But thou hast yet to see 
A fairer sight," she said, and led the way 
To where a window of pellucid ice 
Stood in the wall of snow, beside their path. 195 

" Look, but thou may'st not enter." Eva looked, 
And lo ! a glorious hall, from whose high vault 



312 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Stripes of soft light, ruddy, and delicate green. 
And tender blue, flowed downward to the floor 
And far around, as if the aerial hosts, 200 

That march on high by night, with beamy spears. 
And streaming banners, to that place had brought 
Their radiant flags to grace a festival. 
And in that hall a joyous multitude 
Of those by whom its glistening walls were reared, 205 
Whirled in a merry dance to silvery sounds, 
That rang from cymbals of transparent ice. 
And ice-cups, quivering to the skilful touch 
Of little fingers. Round and round they flew. 
As when, in spring, about a chimney top, 210 

A cloud of twittering swallows, just returned. 
Wheel round and round, and turn and wheel again, 
Unwinding their swift track. So rapidly 
Flowed the meandering stream of that fair dance. 
Beneath that dome of light. Bright eyes that 
looked 215 

From under lily brows, and gauzy scarfs 
Sparkling like snow-wreaths in the early sun, 
Shot by the window in their mazy whirl. 
And there stood Eva, wondering at the sight 
Of those bright revellers and that graceful sweep 220 
Of motion as they passed her ; — long she gazed. 
And listened long to the sweet sounds that thrilled 
The frosty air, till now the encroaching cold 
Recalled her to herself. " Too long, too long 
I linger here," she said, and then she sprang 225 

Into the path, and with a hurried step 
Followed it upward. Ever by her side 
Her little guide kept pace. As on they went 
Eva bemoaned her fault : " What must they think — 
The dear ones in the cottage, while so long, 230 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 313 

Hour after hour, I stay without ? I know 

That they will seek me far and near, and weep 

To find me not. How could I, wickedly. 

Neglect the charge they gave me ? " As she spoke, 

The hot tears started to her eyes ; she knelt 235 

In the mid path. " Father ! forgive this sin ; 

Forgive myself I cannot '" — thus she prayed, 

And rose and hastened onward. When, at last. 

They reached the outer air, the clear north breathed 

A bitter cold, from which she shrank with dread, 240 

But the snow-maiden bounded as she felt 

The cutting blast, and uttered shouts of joy, 

And skipped, with boundless glee, from drift to drift. 

And danced round Eva, as she labored up 

The mounds of snow. " Ah me ! I feel my eyes 245 

Grow heavy," Eva said ; " they swim with sleep ; 

I cannot walk for utter weariness, 

And I must rest a moment on this bank. 

But let it not be long." As thus she spoke, 

In half-formed words, she sank on the smooth snow. 

With closing lids. Her guide composed the robe 251 

About her limbs, and said, " A pleasant spot 

Is this to slumber in ; on such a couch 

Oft have I slept away the winter night. 

And had the sweetest dreams." So Eva slept, 255 

But slept in death ; for when the power of frost 

Locks up the motions of the living frame. 

The victim passes to the realm of Death 

Through the dim porch of Sleep. The little guide, 

Watching beside her, saw the hues of life 260 

Fade from the fair smooth brow and rounded cheek, 

As fades the crimson from a morning cloud, 

Till they were white as marble, and the breath 

Had ceased to come and go, yet knew she not 



314 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

At first that this was death. But when she marked 265 

How deep the paleness was, how motionless 

That once lithe form, a fear came over her. 

She strove to wake the sleeper, plucked her robe, 

And shouted in her ear, but all in vain ; 

The life had passed away from those young limbs. 270 

Then the snow-maiden raised a wailing cry. 

Such as the dweller in some lonely wild, 

Sleepless through all the long December night. 

Hears when the mournful East begins to blow. 

But suddenly was heard the sound of steps, 275 

Grating on the crisp snow ; the cottagers 
Were seeking Eva ; from afar they saw 
The twain, and hurried toward them. As they came. 
With gentle chidings ready on their lips. 
And marked that deathlike sleep, and heard the 
tale 280 

Of the snow-maiden, mortal anguish fell 
Upon their hearts, and bitter words of grief 
And blame were uttered ; " Cruel, cruel one, 
To tempt our daughter thus, and cruel we. 
Who suffered her to wander forth alone 285 

In this fierce cold." They lifted the dear child. 
And bore her home and chafed her tender limbs. 
And strove, by all the simple arts they knew. 
To make the chilled blood move, and win the breath 
Back to her bosom ; fruitlessly they strove. 290 

The little maid was dead. In blank despair 
They stood, and gazed at her who never more 
Should look on them. " Why die we not with her ? " 
They said; " without her, life is bitterness." 

Now came the funeral-day ; the simple folk 295 

Of all that pastoral region gathered round, 
To share the sorrow of the cottagers. 



THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. 315 

They carved a way into the mound of snow 

To the glen's side, and dug a little grave 

In the smooth slope, and, following the bier, 300 

In long procession from the silent door, 

Chanted a sad and solemn melody : 

" Lay her away to rest within the ground. 
Yea, lay her down whose pure and innocent life 
Was spotless as these snows ; for she was reared sos 
In love, and passed in love life's pleasant spring, 
And all that now our tenderest love can do 
Is to give burial to her lifeless limbs." 

They paused. A thousand slender voices round, 
Like echoes softly flung from rock and hill, 310 

Took up the strain, and all the hollow air 
Seemed mourning for the dead ; for, on that day, 
The Little People of the Snow had come. 
From mountain peak, and cloud, and icy hall, 
To Eva's burial. As the murmur died, 315 

The funeral-train renewed the solemn chant. 

" Thou, Lord, hast taken her to be with Eve, 
Whose gentle name was given her. Even so. 
For so Thy wisdom saw that it was best 
For her and us. We bring our bleeding hearts, 320 
And ask the touch of healing from Thy hand, 
As, with submissive tears, we render back 
The lovely and beloved to Him who gave." 

They ceased. Again the plaintive murmur rose. 
From shadowy skirts of low-hung cloud it came, 325 
And wide white fields, and fir-trees capped with snow. 
Shivering to the sad sounds. They sank away 
To silence in the dim-seen distant woods. 

The little grave was closed ; the funeral-train 
Departed ; winter wore away ; the spring 330 

Steeped, with her quickening rains, the violet tufts. 



816 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

By fond hands planted where the maiden slept. 

But, after Eva's burial, never more 

The Little People of the Snow were seen 

By human eye, nor ever human ear 335 

Heard from their lips articulate speech again ; 

For a decree went forth to cut them off. 

Forever, from communion with mankind. 

The winter clouds, along the mountain-side 

Rolled downward toward the vale, but no fair form 

Leaned from their folds, and, in the icy glens, 341 

And aged woods, under snow-loaded pines. 

Where once they made their haunt, was emptiness. 

But ever, when the wintry days drew near, 
Around that little grave, in the long night, 345 

Frost-wreaths were laid, and tufts of silvery rime 
In shape like blades and blossoms of the field, 
As one would scatter flowers upon a bier. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, August 29, 1809. The house in which he 
was born stood between the sites now occupied by the Hem- 
enway Gymnasium and the Law School of Harvard Uni- 
versity, and was of historic interest as having been the head- 
quarters of General Artemas Ward, and of the Committee 
of Safety in the days just before the Revolution. Upon 
the steps of the house stood President Langdon, of Har- 
vard College, tradition says, and prayed for the men who, 
halting there a few moments, marched forward under Colo- 
nel Prescott's lead to throw up intrenchments on Bunker 
Hill on the night of June 16, 1775. Dr. Holmes's father 
carried forward the traditions of the old house, for he was 
Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes, whose American Annals was the 
first careful record of American history written after the 
Revolution. 

Born and bred in the midst of historic associations, 
Holmes had from the first a lively interest in American his- 
tory and politics, and though possessed of strong humorous 
gifts, has often turned his song into patriotic channels, while 
the current of his literary life has been distinctly American. 

He began to write poetry when in college at Cambridge, 
and some of his best-known early pieces, like Evening, by a 
Tailor, The Meeting of the Dryads, The Spectre Pig, were 
contributed to the Collegian, an undergraduate journal, while 
he was studying law the year after his graduation. At the 



318 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

same time he wrote the well-known poem Old Ironsides, sb 
protest against the proposed breaking up of the frigate Con- 
stitution ; the poem was printed in the Boston Daily Adver- 
tiser, and its indignation and fervor carried it through the 
country, and raised such a popular feeling that the ship was 
saved from an ignominious destruction. Holmes shortly 
gave up the study of law, went abroad to study medicine, 
and returned to take his degree at Harvard in 1836. At 
the same time he delivered a poem, Poetry : a Metrical 
Essay, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, and 
ever since his profession of medicine and his love of litera- 
ture have received his united care and thought. In 1838 
he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at 
Dartmouth College, but remained there only a year or two, 
when he returned to Boston, married, and practised medi- 
cine. In 1847 he was made Parkman Professor of Anat- 
omy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard Col- 
lege, a position which he retained until the close of 1882, 
when he retired, to devote himself more exclusively to liter- 
ature. 

In 1857, when the Atlantic Monthly was established, 
Professor Lowell, who was asked to be editor, consented on 
condition that Dr. Holmes should be a regular contributor. 
Dr. Holmes at that time was known as the author of a num- 
ber of poems of grace, life, and wit, and he had published 
several professional papers and books, but his brilliancy as a 
talker gave him a strong local reputation, and Lowell 
shrewdly guessed that he would bring to the new magazine 
a singularly fresh and unusual power. He was right, for 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table, beginning in the 
first number, unquestionably insured the Atlantic its early 
success. The readers of the day had forgotten that Holmesj 
twenty-five years before, had begun a series with the same 
title in Buckingham's New England Magazine, a periodi- 
cal of short life, so they did not at first understand why he 
should begin his first article, " I was just going to say when 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 319 

I was interrupted." From that time Dr. Holmes was a 
frequent contributor to the magazine, and in it appeared 
successively, The Autocrat of the Breakfast- Table, The Pro- 
fessor at the Breakfast-Table, The Professor's Story (after- 
ward called Elsie Venner), The Guardian Angel, The Poet 
at the Breakfast-Table,The New Portfolio (afterward called 
A Mortal Antipathy), Our Hundred Days in Europe, and 
Over the Teacups, — prose papers and stories with occa- 
sional insertion of verse ; here also have been printed the 
many poems which he has so freely and happily written for 
festivals and pubHc occasions, including the frequent poems 
at the yearly meetings of his college class. The wit and 
humor which have made his poetry so well known would 
never have given him his high rank had they not been asso- 
ciated with an admirable art wliich makes every word ne- 
cessary and felicitous, and a generous nature which is quick 
to seize upon what touches a common life. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER HILL 

BATTLE. 

AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY. 

[This poem was first published in 1875, in connection 
with the centenary of the battle of Bunker Hill. The bel- 
fry could hardly have been that of Christ Church, since tra- 
dition says that General Gage was stationed there watching 
the battle, and we may make it to be what was known as 
the New Brick Church, built in 1721, on Hanover, corner 
of Richmond Street, Boston, rebuilt of stone in 1845, and 
pulled down at the widening of Hanover Street in 1871. 
There are many narratives of the battle of Bunker Hill. 
Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston is one of the 
most comprehensive accounts, and has furnished material 
for many popular narratives. Tlie centennial celebration 
of the battle called out magazine and newspaper articles, 
which give the story with little variation. There are not 
many disputed points in connection with the event, the prin- 
cipal one being the discussion as to who was the chief 
officer.] 

'T IS like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one 

remembers 
All the achings and the quakings of " the times that 

tried men's souls ; " 

2. In December, 1776, Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense had 
so remarkable a popularity as the first homely expression of 
public opinion on Independence, began issuing a series of tracts 
called The Crisis, eighteen numbers of which appeared. The fa- 
miliar words quoted by the grandmother must often have been 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 321 

When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Eebel 
story, 

To you the words are ashes, but to me they 're burn- 
ing coals. 

I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running 

battle ; s 

Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red coats 

still; 
But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up 

before me. 
When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of 

Bunker's HiU. 

heard and used by her. They begin the first number of The 
Crisis : " These are the times that try men's souls : the summer 
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from 
the service of his country ; but he that stands it now deserves 
the love and thanks of man and woman." - 

3. The terms Whig and Tory were applied to the two parties 
in England who represented, respectively, the Whigs political 
and religious liberty, the Tories royal prerogative and ecclesias- 
tical authority. The names first came into use in 1679 in the 
struggles at the close of Charles II. 's reign, and continued in use 
until a generation or so ago, when they gave place to somewhat 
corresponding terms of Liberal and Conservative. At the break- 
ing out of the war for Independence, the Whigs in England op- 
posed the measures taken by the crown in the management of 
the American colonies, while the Tories supported the crown. 
The names were naturally applied in America to the patriotic 
party, who were termed Whigs, and the loyalist party, termed 
Tories. The Tories in turn called the patriots rebels. 

5. The Lexington and Concord affair of April 19, 1775, when 
Lord Percy's soldiers retreated in a disorderly manner to 
Charlestown, annoyed on the way by the Americans who fol- 
lowed and accompanied them. 



322 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first 

thing gave us warning 
Was the booming of the cannon from the river and 

the shore : lo 

" Child," says grandma, " what 's the matter, what is 

all this noise and clatter ? 
Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us 

once more ? " 

Poor old soul ! my sides were shaking in the midst of 
all my quaking, 

To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to 
roar: 

She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter 
and the pillage, 15 

When the Mohawks killed her father with their bul- 
lets through his door. 

Then I said, " Now, dear old granny, don't you fret 

and worry any. 
For I '11 soon come back and tell you whether this is 

work or play ; 
There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a 

minute " — 
For a minute then I started. I was gone the livelong 

day. 20 

No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grima- 
cing ; 

16. The Mohawks, a formidable part of the Six Nations, were 
held in great dread, as they were the most cruel and warlike of 
all the tribes. In connection with the French they fell upon the 
frontier settlements during Queen Anne's war, early in the 
eighteenth century, and committed terrible deeds, long remem- 
bered in New England households. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY, 323 

Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way 
to my heels ; 

God forbid your ever knowing, when there 's blood 
around her flowing, 

How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house- 
hold feels ! 

In the street I heard a thumping ; and I knew it was 

the stumping 25 

Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on the wooden leg 

he wore. 
With a knot of women round him, — it was lucky I 

had found him, 
So I followed with the others, and the Corporal 

marched before. 

They were making for the steeple, — the old soldier 
and his people ; 

The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creak- 
ing stair, 30 

Just across the narrow river — Oh, so close it made 
me shiver ! — 

Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was 
bare. 

Not slow our eyes to find it ; well we knew who stood 
behind it. 

Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stub- 
born walls were dumb : 

Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon 
each other, 35 

And their lips were white with terror as they said, 
THE HOUR HAS COME I 



324 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 

The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we 

tasted, 
And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' 

deafening thrill. 
When a figure tall and stately round the rampart 

strode sedately ; 
It was Prescott, one since told me ; he commanded 

on the hill. 40 

Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his 

manly figure, 
With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so 

straight and tall ; 
Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for 

pleasure. 
Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he 

walked around the wall. 

At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' 

ranks were forming ; 45 

At noon in marching order they were moving to the 

piers ; 
How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked 

far down, and listened 
To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted 

grenadiers ! 

40. Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the detach- 
ment which marched from Cambridge, June 16, 1775, to fortify 
Breed's Hill, was the grandfather of William Hickling Prescott, 
the historian. He was in the iield during the entire battle of 
the 17th, in command of the redoubt. 

42. Banyan — a flowered morning gown which Prescott is said 
to have worn during the hot day, a good illustration of the un- 
military appearance of the soldiers engaged. His nonchalant 
walk upon the parapets is also a historic fact, and was for the 
encouragement of the troops within the redoubt. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 325 

At length the men have started, with a cheer (it 
seemed faint-hearted), 

In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on 
their backs, 50 

And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea- 
fight's slaughter. 

Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood 
along their tracks. 

So they crossed to the other border, and again they 
formed in order ; 

And the boats came back for soldiers, came for sol- 
diers, soldiers still : 

The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and 
fasting, — 55 

At last they 're moving, marching, marching proudly 
up the hill. 

We can see the bright steel glancing all along the 

lines advancing — 
Now the front rank fires a volley — they have thrown 

away their shot ; 
For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above 

them flying. 
Our people need not hurry ; so they wait and answer 

not. 60 

Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear 

sometimes and tipple), — 
He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French 

war) before, — 

62. Many of the officers as well as men on the American side 
had become familiarized with service through the old French 
war, which came to an end in 1763. 



326 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were 
hearing, — 

And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty bel- 
fry floor : — 

" Oh ! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's 
shillin's, 65 

But ye '11 waste a ton of powder afore a ' rebel ' falls ; 

You may bang the dirt and welcome, they 're as safe 
as Dan'l Malcolm 

Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splin- 
tered with your balls ! " 

In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation 

Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh 
breathless all ; . 70 

Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety bel- 
fry railing. 

We are crowding up against them like the waves 
against a wall. 

67. Dr. Holmes makes tbe following note to this line : " The 
following epitaph is still to be read on a tall gravestone, stand- 
ing as yet undisturbed among the transplanted monuments of the 
dead in Copp's Hill Burial Ground, one of the three city [Boston] 
cemeteries which have been desecrated and ruined within my 
own remembrance : — 

*' Here lies buried in a 
Stone Grave 10 feet deep 
Capt. Daniel Malcolm Mercht 
Who departed this Life 
October 23, 1769, 
Aged 44 years, 
A true son of Liberty, 
A Friend to the Publick, 
An Enemy to oppression. 
And one of the foremost 
In opposing the Revenue Acta 
On America," 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 327 

Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer, 

— nearer, — nearer, 
When a flash — a curling smoke-wreath — then a 

crash — the steeple shakes — 
The deadly truce is ended ; the tempest's shroud is 

rended ; 75 

Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud 

it breaks! 

O the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke 

blows over ! 
The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes 

his hay ; 
Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd 

is flying 
Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into 

spray. so 

Then we cried, " The troops are routed ! they are 

beat — it can't be doubted ! 
God be thanked, the fight is over ! " — Ah ! the grim 

old soldier's smile ! 
" Tell us, tell us why you look so ? " (we could hardly 

speak we shook so), — 
" Are they beaten ? Are they beaten ? Are they 

beaten ? " — " Wait a while." 

O the trembling and the terror ! for too soon we saw 

our error : ss 

They are baffled, not defeated ; we have driven them 

back in vain ; 
And the columns that were scattered, round the colors 

that were tattered, 
Toward the sullen silent fortress turn their belted 

breasts again. 



328 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

All at once, as we were gazing, lo ! tlie roofs of Charles- 
town blazing ! 

They have fired the harmless village ; in an hour it 
will be down ! 90 

The Lord in Heaven confound them, rain his fire and 
brimstone round them, — 

The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a 
peaceful town ! 

They are marc^iug, stern and solemn; we can see 

each massive column 
As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting 

walls so steep. 
Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless 

haste departed ? 95 

Are they panic-struck and helpless ? Are they palsied 

or asleep ? 

Now ! the walls they 're almost under ! scarce a rod 

the foes asunder ! 
Not a firelock flashed against them ! up the earthwork 

they will swarm ! 
But the words have scarce been spoken when the 

ominous calm is broken, 
And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance 

of the storm ! 100 

So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards 

to the water. 
Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves 

of Howe ; 

102. The generals on the British side were Howe, Clinton, 
and Pigot. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 329 

And we shout, " At last they 're done for, it 's their 

barges they have run for : 
They are beaten, beaten, beaten ; and the battle 's over 

now!" 

And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough 

old soldier's features, 105 

Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we 

would ask : 
"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet, — once more, I 

guess, they '11 try it — '^^^ 
Here 's damnation to the cut-throats ! " then he 

handed me his flask. 

Saying, " Gal, you 're looking shaky ; have a drop of 

Old Jamaiky ; 
I 'm af eard there '11 be more trouble afore the job is 

done ; " 110 

So I took one scorching swallow ; dreadful faint I felt 

and hollow. 
Standing there from early morning when the firing 

was begun. 

All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm 

clock dial. 
As the hands kept creeping, creeping, — they were 

creeping round to four, 
When the old man said, " They 're forming with their 

bagonets fixed for storming : us 

It 'f) the death-grip that 's a coming, — they will try 

the works once more." 

TV it a brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them 
glaring, 



330 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

The deadly wall before them, in close array they 
come ; 

Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold un- 
coiling, — 

Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating 
drum ! 120 

Over heaps all torn and gory — shall I tell the fearful 
story. 

How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea 
breaks over a deck ; 

How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men 
retreated. 

With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swim- 
mers from a wreck ? 

It has all been told and painted ; as for me, they say 

I fainted, 125 

And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with 

me down the stair : 
When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening 

lamps were lighted, — 
On the floor a youth was lying ; his bleeding breast 

was bare. 

And I heard through all the flurry, " Send for War- 
ren! hurry! hurry! 

TeU him here 's a soldier bleeding, and he 'U come 
and dress his wound ! " 130 

Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death 
and sorrow, 

129. Dr. Joseph Warren, of equal note at the time as a medi- 
cal man and a patriot. He was a volunteer in the battle, and 
fell there, the most serious loss on the American side. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORY. 331 

How the starlioht found him stiffened on the dark 
and bloody ground. 

Who the youth was, what his name was, where the 

place from which he came was, 
Who had brought him from the battle, and had left 

him at our door. 
He could not speak to tell us ; but 't was one of our 

brave fellows, 135 

As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying 

soldier wore. 

For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered 

round him crying, — 
And they said, " Oh, how they '11 miss him ! " and, 

" What will his mother do ? " 
Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has 

been dozing. 
He faintly murmured, " Mother ! " and — I saw 

his eyes were blue. 140 

— " Why grandma, how you 're winking ! " — Ah, my 

child, it sets me thinking 
Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived 

along ; 
So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like 

a — mother, 
Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-cheeked, 

and strong. 

And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant 
summer weather ; 145 

— "Please to tell us what his name was?" — Just 

your own, my little dear. 



332 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

There 's his picture Copley painted : we became so 

well acquainted, 
That — in short, that 's why I 'm grandma, and you 

children all are here ! " 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 

[Phillips Academy at And over, Massachusetts, was founded 
in 1778, by Judge Samuel Phillips, assisted by two uncles, who 
also established nearly at the time Phillips Exeter Academy, at 
Exeter, New Hampshire. The centennial anniversary of the 
founding of Phillips Academy was celebrated at Andover, in 
June, 1878, and Dr. Holmes, who had been a boy in the school 
more than fifty years before, read the following poem.] 

These hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, 
Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near ; 
With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, 
With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand. 
The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, 5 

The groves are vocal with their minstrel's tune, 
The mighty elm beneath whose arching shade. 
The wandering children of the forest strayed, 
Greets the glad morning in its bridal dress. 
And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless. lo 

Is it an idle dream that nature shares 
Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares ? 

147. John Singleton Copley was a portrait painter of celebrity 
who was born in America in 1737 and painted many famous por- 
traits, which hang in private and public galleries in Boston and 
vicinity chiefly. He lived in England the latter half of his life, 
dying there in 1815. 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 333 

Is there no summons, when at morning's call 

The sable vestments of the darkness fall ? 

Does not meek evening's low- voiced Ave blend 15 

With the soft vesper as its notes ascend ? 

Is there no whisper in the perfumed air, 

When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare ? 

Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice ? 

Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice ? 20 

No silent message when from midnight skies 

Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes ? 

Or shift the mirror ; say our dreams diffuse 
O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, 
Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, 25 

And robe the earth in glories not its own. 
Sing their own music in the summer breeze, 
With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, 
Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye 
And spread a bluer azure on the sky, — 30 

Blest be the power that works its lawless will 
And finds the weediest patch an Eden still ; 
No walls so fair as those our fancies build, — 
No views so bright as those our visions gild ! 

So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, 35 

The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette ; 
Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways 
Full many a slipshod line, alas ! betrays ; 
Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few 

15. The vesper bells of the church-call to the prayers which 
begin Ave Maria, Hail, Mary. 

36. Planchette was a toy in the shape of a spherical triangle 
mounted upon three legs, which was greatly in vogue a few 
years before this poem was written, on account of its supposed 
property of guiding the hand that rested upon it to write in 
obedience to another power. 



334 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Have builded worse — a great deal — than they 
knew. 40 

What need of idle fancy to adorn 
Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn ? 
Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, 
From these green boughs her new-fledged birds take 

wing, 
These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, 45 

In this old nest the brood is ever young. 
If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight. 
Amid the gay young choristers alight, 
These gather round him, mark his faded plumes 
That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, so 

And listen, wondering if some feeble note 
Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat : — 
I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew. 
What tune is left me, fit to sing to you ? 
Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, 55 

But let my easy couplets slide along ; 
Much I could tell you that you know too well ; 
Much I remember, but I will not tell ; 
Age brings experience ; graybeards oft are wise, 
But oh ! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes ! eo 

My cheek was bare of adolescent down 
When first I sought the Academic town : 

40. In playful travesty of Emerson's line in The Problem : — 

" The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
Himself from God he could not free ; 
He builded better than he knew ; — 
The conscious stone to beauty grew." 

50. That the far-off grove still faintly perfumes. 
63. The old Phillips Academy building, now used for a gym- 
nasium, is of red brick. 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 336 

Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, 

Big with its filial and parental load ; 

The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, 65 

The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. 

I see it now, the same unchanging spot, 

The swinging gate, the little garden-plot, 

The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor. 

The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, to 

The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill. 

The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still. 

Two, creased with age, — or what I then called age, — 

Life's volume open at its fiftieth page ; 

One a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet 75 

As the first snow-drop which the sunbeams greet ; 

One the last nursling's ; slight she was, and fair. 

Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn 

hair; 
Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared. 
Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, so 
Strong, patient, humble ; her substantial frame 
Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name. 
Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come 
To the cold comfort of a stranger's home : 
How like a dagger to my sinking heart 85 

Came the dry summons, "It is time to part ; 
" Good-by ! " " Goo-ood-by ! " one fond maternal 

kiss. . . . 
Homesick as death ! Was ever pang like this ? . . . 
Too young as yet with willing feet to stray 
From the tame fireside, glad to get away, — 90 

Too old to let my watery grief appear, — 
And what so bitter as a swallowed tear ! 

71. The rhythm shows the true pronunciation of decorous. An 
analogous word is sonorous. See note to p. 17, 1. 99. 



336 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue ; 
First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you ? 
Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how 95 

You learned it all, — are you an angel now, 
Or tottering gently down the slope of years. 
Your face grown sober in the vale of tears ? 
Forgive my freedom if you are breathing still ; 
If in a happier world, I know you will. 100 

You were a school-boy — what beneath the sun 
So like a monkey ? I was also one. 

Strange, sure enough, to see what curious shoots 
The nursery raises from the study's roots ! 
In those old days the very, very good 105 

Took up more room — a little — than they should ; 
Something too much one's eyes encountered then 
Of serious youth and f uneral-visaged men ; 
The solemn elders saw life's mournful half, — 
Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, no 
Drollest of buffos. Nature's odd protest, 
A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. 

Kind, faithful Nature ! While the sour-eyed Scot, 
Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot, 
Talks only of his preacher and his kirk, — us 

Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work, — 
Praying and fasting till his meagre face 
Gains its due length, the genuine sign of grace, — 
An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox 
Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks ; 120 

Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, 
Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips ; 

94. Ariel is a tricksy sprite in Shakespeare's The Tempest. 
The reference is to a son of James Murdock, with whom 
Holmes lived when he first went to Andover, 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 337 

So to its home her banished smile returns, 
And Scotland sweetens with the song of Burns ! 

The morning came ; I reached the classic hall, 125 
A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall ; 
Beneath its hands a printed line I read : 
Youth is life's seed-time ; so the clock-face said : 
Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed, — 
Sowed — their wild oats — and reaped as they had 
sowed. 130 

How all comes back I the upward slanting floor, 
The masters' thrones that flank the central door. 
The long, outstretching alleys that divide 
The rows of desks that stand on either side, 
The staring boys, a face to every desk, 135 

Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. 

Grave is the Master's look ; his forehead wears 
Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares ; 
Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule. 
His most of all whose kingdom is a school. 140 

Supreme he sits; before the awful frown 
That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down : 
Not more submissive Israel heard and saw 
At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. 

Less stern he seems, who sits in equal state 145 

On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight ; 
Around his lips the subtle life that plays 

137. The master of Dr. Holmes's day was Dr. John Adams. 
139. An echo of Shakespeare's line: — 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 

King Henry IV. Pt. II. Act III. Scene 1. 

145. Rev. Jonathan Clement, D. D., of Norwich, Vt.; for- 
merly of Woodstock. He married one of the Phillips family. 

146. There were two master's desks, in little inclosures, facing 
the school and at equal distances from the centre. 



338 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase ; 

A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, 

Pleasant when pleased ; rough-handled, not so safe ; iso 

Some tingling memories vaguely I recall. 

But to forgive him. God forgive us all 1 

One yet remains, whose well-remembered name 
Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim ; 
His was the charm magnetic, the bright look 155 

That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book ; 
A loving soul to every task he brought 
That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught ; 
Sprung from a saintly race that never could 
From youth to age be anything but good, leo 

His few brief years in holiest labors spent. 
Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. 
Kindest of teachers, studious to divine 
Some hint of promise in my earliest line, 
These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear les 
Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. 

As to the traveller's eye the varied plain 
Shows through the window of the flying train, 
A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, 
A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, no 

A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows 
Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, 
All strangely blended in a hurried gleam. 
Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hillside, stream, — 
So, as we look behind us, life appears, 175 

Seen through the vista of our bygone years. 
Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, 

153. Rev. Samuel H. Stearns, at one time pastor of the Old 
South Church, Boston. He was a brother of President Stearns 
of Amherst College, and the family, in various members, was 
very intimately connected with Phillips Academy. 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 339 

Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain ; 

Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes 

From the vague mists in memory's path they rise, iso 

So comes his blooming image to my view, 

The friend of joyous days when life was new, 

Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, 

No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled. 

Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, I'^s 

Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. 

His the frank smile I vainly look to greet. 

His the warm grasp my clasping hand should meet ; 

How would our lips renew their school-boy talk. 

Our feet retrace the old familiar walk ! i9o 

For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines 

Through the green fringes of thy tented pines ; 

Ah me ! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, 

Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, 

A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, 195 

The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago ? 

Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns. 
Behind them all my glance reverted runs ; 
Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys. 
Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired 
boys ? 200 

Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire, — 
The good old, wrinkled, immemorial " squire " ? 
(An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, 
Not every day our eyes may look upon.) 
Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's sword, 205 
In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord ? 

182. Judge Phinehas Barnes, of Portland, Maine. 
202. Squire Farrar. 

205. Rev. Leonard Woods, D. D., then Professor of Theology 
in the Seminary. 



340 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, 

Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, 

Whose light rekindled, like the morning star, 

Still shines upon us through the gates ajar ? 210 

Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man. 

Whose care-worn face my wondering eyes would scan. 

His features wasted in the lingering strife 

With the pale foe that drains the student's life ? 

Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, 215 

Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck of taint. 

He broached his own opinion, which is not 

Lightly to be forgiven or forgot ; 

Some riddle's point, — I scarce remember now, — 

Homoi-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. 220 

(If the unlettered greatly wish to know 

Where lies the difference betwixt oi and (5, 

Those of the curious who have time may search 

Among the stale conundrums of their church.) 

Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, 225 

And for his modes of faith I little cared, — 

I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, 

Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. 

Why should we look one common faith to find, 
Where one in every score is color-blind ? 230 

207. The reference is to Moses Stuart, who was Professor in 
the Theological School, and grandfather to Miss Elizabeth Stuart 
Phelps. 

211. Ebenezer Porter. 

215. James Murdock. 

222. There was an old doctrinal dispute, turning upon a diver- 
gence in meaning between two Greek words which differed only 
by the vowels oi and ; two parties sprang up, called respect- 
ively Homoiousians and Homoousians. 

230. Dr. B. .Joy Jeffries in his work on Color-Blindness takes 
lines 229-232 for his motto. 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 341 

If here on eartli they know not red from green, 
Will they see better into things unseen ? 

Once more to time's old grave-yard I return 
And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. 
Who, in these days when all things go by steam, 235 
Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team ? 
Its sturdy driver, — who remembers him ? 
Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, 
Who left our hill-top for a new abode 
And reared his sign-post farther down the road ? 240 
Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine 
Do the young bathers splash and think they 're clean ? 
Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, 
Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, 
And bring to younger ears the story back 245 

Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimack? 
Are there still truant feet that stray beyond 
These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's pond. 
Or where the legendary name recalls 
The forest's earlier tenant — " Deerjump Falls " ? 250 

Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore. 
Just as our sires and grandsires did of yore ; 
So all life's opening paths, where nature led 
Their fathers' feet, the children's children tread. 
Roll the round century's fivescore years away, 255 

Call from our storied past that earliest day 
When great Eliphalet (I can see him now, — 
Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow). 
Then young Eliphalet, ruled the rows of boys 
In homespun gray or old-world corduroys, — 260 

243. A singular formation like an embankment running for 
some distance through the woods near Andover. 

257. Eliphalet Pearson, the first principal of the school, and, 
in later life, professor in the Theological Seminary. 



342 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

And, save for fashion's whims, the benches show 
The self-same youths, the very boys we know. 

Time works strange marvels ; since I trod the green 
And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen ! 
But come what will, — the sky itself may fall, — 265 
As things of course the boy accepts them all. 
The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame. 
For daily use our travelling millions claim ; 
The face we love a sunbeam makes our own ; 
No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan ; 270 
What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay 
Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the day ! 
Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord. 
The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword ; 
Great is the goosequill, say we all ; Amen ! 275 

Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen ; 
It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised. 
The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's palace blazed, 
Unearths Mycenae, rediscovers Troy, — 
Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. 280 

A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, 
A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, 

274. " Beneath the rule of men entirely great 

The pen is mightier than the sword." 
Edward Bulwer Lytton's Richelieu, Act II. Scene 2. 
277. Layard between 1845 and 1850 unearthed Nineveh. The 
results of his excavations are published in the very interesting 
work, Nineveh and its Remains. 

279. Mycence, the ancient royal city of Argos, and Troy, the 
scene of the Iliad, have been uncovered by " shovelling Schlie- 
mann." 

281. Prometheus in Greek mythology made men of clay and 
animated them by means of fire which he stole from heaven. 
The reference is to the electric light. 

282. Orpheus's skill in music was so wonderful that he could 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 343 

Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun 

And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun, — 

So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place 285 

For those dim fictions known as time and space. 

Still a new miracle each year supplies, — 

See at his work the chemist of the skies, 

Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays 

And steals the secret of the solar blaze. 290 

Hush ! while the window-rattling bugles play 

The nation's airs a hundred miles away ! 

That wicked phonograph ! hark ! how it swears ! 

Turn it again and make it say its prayers ! 

And was it true, then, what the story said 295 

Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head ? 

While wondering science stands, herself perplexed 

At each day's miracle, and asks " what next ? " 

The immortal boy, the coming heir of all. 

Springs from his desk to " urge the flying ball," 300 

make even trees and rocks follow him. The telephone and pho- 
nograph were just coming into common use when the poem was 
read. 

290. In the spectroscope. 

296. Friar Roger Bacon, who lived in the latter half of the 
thirteenth century, was a scientific investigator, whom popular 
ignorance made to be a magician. He was said to have con- 
structed a brazen head, from which great things were to be ex- 
pected when it should speak, but the exact moment could not be 
known. While Bacon and another friar were asleep and an at- 
tendant was keeping watch, the brazen head spoke the words. 
Time is. The attendant thought that too commonplace a state- 
ment to make it worth while to wake his master. 2 me was, 
said the head, and then Time is past, and with that fell to the 
ground with a crash and never could be set up again. 

300. See Thomas Gray's On a Distant Prospect of Eton College : 

" Who foremost now delight to cleave, 
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave ? 
The captive liimet which enthral ? 



344 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Cleaves witli his bending oar tlie glassy waves, 
With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, 
The same bright creature in these haunts of ours 
That Eton shadowed with her " antique towers." 

Boy! Where is he? the long-limbed youth in- 
quires, 305 
Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires ; 
Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows. 
When the bright hair is white as winter snows, 
When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame. 
Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name ! sio 
Nor think the difference mighty as it seems 
Between life's morning and its evening dreams ; 
Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys ; 
In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. 

Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who 315 

Can guess beforehand what his pen will do ? 
Too light my strain for listeners such as these. 
Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall please. 
Is he not here whose breath of holy song 
Has raised the downcast eyes of faith so long? 320 

Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, 
For whom the wearied ear impatient waits, — 
The large-brained scholars whom their toils release, — 
The bannerecl heralds of the Prince of Peace ? 

What idle progeny succeed 
To chase the rolling circle's speed, 
Or urge the flj^ng ball ? " 

304. See the ode just cited and beginning : — 

"Te distant spires, ye antique towers, 
That crown the watery glade, 
Where grateful Science still adores 
Her Henry's holy shade." 

319. One of the visitors present was the Rev. Dr. Ray Palmer, 
author of the well-known hymn, beginning : — 
" My faith looks up to Thee." 



THE SCHOOL-BOY. 345 

Such was the gentle friend whose youth un- 
blamed 325 

In years long past our student-benches claimed ; 
Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, 
Lives in the labors of his riper age ; 
Such he whose record Time's destroying march 
Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch : 330 

Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, 
Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong ; 
One ray they lend to gild my slender line, — 
Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine. 

Home of our sires, where learning's temple rose, 335 
While yet they struggled with their banded foes, 
As in the west thy century's sun descends, 
One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. 
Darker and deeper though the shadows fall 
From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, 340 
Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, 
And her new armor youthful Science boasts, 
Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine. 
Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine ; 
No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, 345 

No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow. 
But Faith shall smile to find her sister free. 
And nobler manhood draw its life from thee. 

325. Dr. Holmes in a pleasant paper of reminiscences, Cin- 
ders from the Ashes, has dwelt at length on his boyish recollec- 
tions of Horatio Balch Hackett, a schoolmate, and known later 
as the learned Biblical scholar and student of Palestine explora- 
tions. 

329. The reference is to Edward Robinson, the pioneer of sci- 
entific travel in the Holy Land, one of whose best known discov- 
eries was of the remains of an arch of an ancient bridge, there- 
after called " Robinson's Arch.'* 



346 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

Long as the arching skies above thee spread, 
As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, 350 

With currents widening still from year to year. 
And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear. 
Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill — 
Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill ! 

354. Pieria was the fabled home of the Muses and the birth- 
place of Orpheus ; Siloam, a pool near Jerusalem often men- 
tioned by the prophets and in the New Testament, has passed 
into poetry through Milton's lines : — 

" Or if Sion-hill 
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed 
Fast by the oracle of God." 

Paradise Lost, Book I., 1. 10. 

And through the first two lines of Reginald Heber's hymn : — 

" By cool Siloam's shady rill 
How sweet the lily grows." 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

James Russell Lowell died August 12, 1891, at Elm- 
wood, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the house where he was 
born February 22, 1819. His early life was spent in Cam- 
bridge, and he has sketched many of the scenes in it very 
delightfully in Cambridge Thirty Years Ago, in his volume 
of Fireside Travels, as well as in his early poem, An Indian 
Summer Reverie. His father was a Congregationalist min- 
ister of Boston, and the family to which he belonged has had 
a strong representation in Massachusetts. His grandfather, 
John Lowell, was an eminent jurist, the Lowell Institute of 
Boston owes its endowment to John Lowell, a cousin of the 
poet, and the city of Lowell was named after Francis Cabot 
Lowell, an uncle, who was one of the first to begin the man- 
ufacture of cotton in New England. 

Lowell was a student at Harvard, and was graduated in 
1838, when he gave a class poem, and in 1841 his first vol- 
ume of poems, A Year's Life, was published. His bent 
from the beginning was more decidedly literary than that of 
any contemporary American poet. That is to say, the his- 
tory and art of literature divided his interest with the pro- 
duction of literature, and he carries the unusual gift of rare 
critical power, joined to hearty, spontaneous creation. It 
may indeed be guessed that the keenness of judgment and 
incisiveness of wit which characterized his examination of 
literature sometimes interfered with his poetic power, and 



348 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

made him liable to question his art when he would rather 
have expressed it unchecked. In connection with Robert 
Carter, a litterateur who died in 1879, he began, in 1843, 
the publication of The Pioneer, a Literary and Critical 
Magazine, which lived a brilliant life of three months. A 
volume of poetry followed in 1844, and the next year he 
published Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, — a 
book which is now out of print, but interesting as marking 
the enthusiasm of a young scholar, treading a way then 
almost wholly neglected in America, and intimating a line 
of thought and study in which he afterward made most 
noteworthy ventures. Another series of poems followed 
in 1848, and in the same year The Vision of Sir Launfal. 
Perhaps it was in reaction from the marked sentiment of 
his poetry that he issued now a jeu d' esprit, A Fable for 
Critics, in which he hit off, with a rough and ready wit, 
the characteristics of the writers of the day, not forgetting 
himself in these lines : — 

" There is Lowell, who '*s striving Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme ; 
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, 
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders ; 
The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching 
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching ; 
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, 
But he 'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, 
And rattle away till he 's old as Methusalem, 
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem." 

This, of course, is but a half serious portrait of himself, 
and it touches but a single feature ; others can say better 
that Lowell's ardent nature showed itself in the series of 
satirical poems which made him famous. The Big/low Pa- 
pers, written in a spirit of indignation and fine scorn, when 
the Mexican War was causing many Americans to blush 
with shame at the use of the country by a class for its own 
ignoble ends. The true patriotism which marked these and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 349 

other of his early poems burned with a steady glow in after 
years, and illumined poems of which we shall speak pres- 
ently. 

After a year and a half spent in travel, Lowell was ap- 
pointed in 1855 to the Belles Lettres professorship at Har- 
vard, previously held by Longfellow. When the Atlantic 
Monthly was established in 1857 he became its editor, and 
soon after rehnquishing that post he assumed part editorship 
of the North American Review. In these two magazines, 
as also in Putnam's Monthly, he published poems, essays, 
and critical papers, which have been gathered into vol- 
umes. His prose writings, besides the volumes already 
mentioned, include two series of Among my Books, histori- 
cal and critical studies, chiefly in English literature ; and 
My Study Windows, including, with similar subjects, obser- 
vations of nature and contemporary life. During the war 
for the Union he published a second series of the Biglow 
Papers, in which, with the wit and fun of the earlier series, 
there was mingled a deeper strain of feeling and a larger 
tone of patriotism. The limitations of his style in these sa- 
tires forbade the fullest expression of his thought and emo- 
tion ; but afterward in a succession of poems, occasioned by 
the honors paid to student-soldiers in Cambridge, the death 
of Agassiz, and the celebration of national anniversaries 
during the years 1875 and 1876, he sang in loftier, more 
ardent strains. The interest which readers have in Lowell 
is still divided between his rich, abundant prose, and his 
thoughtful, often passionate verse. The sentiment of his 
early poetry, always humane, was greatly enriched by larger 
experience ; so that the themes which he chose for his later 
work demanded and received a broad treatment, full of 
sympathy with the most generous instincts of their time, 
and built upon historic foundations. 

In 1877 he went to Spain as Minister Plenipotentiary. 
In 1880 he was transferred to England as Minister Pleni- 
potentiary near the Court of St. James. His duties as 



350 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

American Minister did not prevent him from producing oc- 
casional writings, chiefly in connection with public events. 
Notable among these are his address at the unveiling of a 
statue of Fielding, and his address on Democracy. 

Mr. Lowell returned to the United States in 1885, and 
was not afterward engaged in public affairs, but passed the 
rest of his life quietly in his Cambridge home, prevented 
by failing health from doing much literary work. He made 
a collection of his later poems in 1888, under the title 
Heartsease and Rue^ and carefully revised his complete 
works, published in ten volumes in 1890. Since his death 
this collection has been enriched by Latest Literary Essays 
and Addresses and Lectures on the Old English Drama- 
tists. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 

[Author's Note. — According to the mythology of the Ro- 
mancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which 
Jesus Christ partook of the last supper with his disciples. It was 
brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained 
there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years, in 
the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon 
those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and 
deed ; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the 
Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite en- 
terprise of the Knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. 
Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read 
in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Ten- 
nyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most ex- 
quisite of his poems. 

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of 
the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I 
have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miracu- 
lous cup in such a manner as to include not only other persons 
than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time 
subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur's reign.] 



PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. 

Over his keys the musing organist, 

Beginning doubtfuUy and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his 
lay: 
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument s 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 



352 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
Along the wavering vista of his dream. 



Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; lo 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
•The great winds utter prophecies ; 15 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 
And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 20 

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us. 

We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 25 

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, 

9. In allusion to Wordsworth's 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy," 
in his ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early 
Childhood. 

27. In the Middle Ages kings and noblemen had in their 
courts jesters to make sport for the company ; as every one then 
wore a dress indicating his rank or occupation, so the jester wore 
a cap hung with bells. The fool of Shakespeare's plays is the 
king's jester at his best. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 353 

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 

'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
'T is only God may be had for the asking ; so 

No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 35 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
Whether we look, or whether we listen. 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 4o 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 45 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace ; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, so 

And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives ; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and 

sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 55 
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best ? 

Now is the high-tide of the year, 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 



354 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay ; eo 

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 
We are happy now because God wills it ; 
No matter how barren the past may have been, 
'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green ; 
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well es 

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; 
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 
That skies are clear and grass is growing ; 
The breeze comes whispering in our ear. 
That dandelions are blossoming near, 70 

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 
That the river is bluer than the sky, 
That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; 
And if the breeze kept the good news back. 
For other couriers we should not lack ; 75 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — 
And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 

Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; so 

Everything is happy now. 

Everything is upward striving ; 
'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'T is the natural way of living : ss 

Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake ; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed. 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
The soul partakes of the season's youth, 90 

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 355 

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 
What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow ? 95 



PART FIRST. 
I. 

"My golden spurs now bring to me, 

And bring to me my richest mail. 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 

In search of the Holy Grail ; 
Shall never a bed for me be spread, 100 

Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep, 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
Ere day create the world anew." 105 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 

Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 
And into his soul the vision flew. 

II. 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes. 

In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees, no 
The little birds sang as if it were 
The one day of summer in all the year. 

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees : 

The castle alone in the landscape lay 

Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray ; ns 

'T was the proudest hall in the North Countree, 

And never its gates might opened be. 

Save to lord or lady of high degree ; 



356 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Summer besieged it on every side, 

But the churlish stone her assaults defied, 120 

She could not scale the chilly wall. 

Though around it for leagues her pavilions tall 

Stretched left and right, 

Over the hills and out of sight ; 

Green and broad was every tent, 125 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



III. 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 
And through the dark arch a charger sprang, 
Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, iso 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 
Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long, 
And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, 135 

Had cast them forth : so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf. 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden mail. 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 



IV. 

It was morning on hill and stream and tree, uo 

And morning in the young knight's heart ; 

Only the castle moodily 

Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free. 
And gloomed by itself apart ; 

The season brimmed all other things up 145 

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 357 

V. 

As Sir Launf al made morn through the darksome gate, 

He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same, 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate ; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 150 

The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill. 

The flesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink and crawl. 
And midway its leap his heart stood still 

Like a frozen waterfall ; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 155 

Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 



VI. 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust : 

*' Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 

Better the blessing of the poor. 

Though I turn me empty from his door ; 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 

He gives only the worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty ; i65 

But he who gives but a slender mite. 
And gives to that which is out of sight. 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, no 

The heart outstretches its eager palms. 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before." 



358 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
From the snow five thousand summers old ; 175 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 
It had gathered all the cold, 

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleaf ed boughs and pastures bare ; 180 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof ; 

All night by the white stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams ; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars i85 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars ; 

He sculptured every summer delight 

In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, wo 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 

Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 195 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf ; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 

And hung them thickly with diamond dropSc, 200 

174. Note the different moods that are indicated by the two 
preludes. The one is of June, the other of snow and winter. 
By these preludes the poet, like an organist, strikes a key which 
he holds in the subsequent part. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 359 

That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, 

And made a star of every one : 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 

'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 205 

In his depths serene through the summer day, 

Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky. 

Lest the happy model should be lost. 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 210 

Within the hall are song and laughter, 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, 
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap. 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 220 

And swift little troops of silent sparks, 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear. 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deer. 

204. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., in a magnificent 
freak, built a palace of ice, which was a nine-days' wonder. 
Cowper has given a poetical description of it in The Task, Book 
V. lines 131-176. 

216. The Yule-log was anciently a huge log burned at the feast 
of Juul by our Scandinavian ancestors in honor of the god Thor. 
Juul-tid corresponded in time to Christmas tide, and when Chris- 
tian festivities took the place of pagan, many ceremonies re- 
mained. The great log, still called the Yule-log, was dragged 
in and burned in the fireplace after Thor had been forgotten. 



360 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 

Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings. 
Singing, in dreary monotone, 

A Christmas carol of its own, 230 

Whose burden still, as he might guess. 
Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " 
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 235 

The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND. 

I. 

There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 240 

The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak. 

For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun ; 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 245 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 
As if her veins were sapless and old. 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 

II. 

Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate, 250 

For another heir in the earldom sate ; 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 361 

An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 

He came back from seeking the Holy Grail ; 

Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, 255 

But deep in his soul the sign he wore, 

The badge of the suffering and the poor. 



III. 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 

Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air. 

For it was just at the Christmas time ; 260 

So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clirDC, 

And sought for a shelter from cold and >=now 

In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 

He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 

O'er the edge of the desert, black an'^: small, 265 

Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one. 

He can count the camels in the sun. 

As over the red-hot sands they paFii 

To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 

The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 270 

And with its own self like an infant played, 

And waved its signal of palms. 

IV. 

" For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms ; " — 

The happy camels may reach the spring. 

But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing, 275 

The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone. 

That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 

And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas, 

In the desolate horvor of his disease. 



362 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

V. 

And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 280 

An image of Him who died on the tree ; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns, — 

And to thy life were not denied 

The wounds in the hands and feet and side : 235 

Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 

Behold, through him, I give to Thee ! " 

VI. 

Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 

He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
When he girt his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
He parted in twain his single crust, 295 

He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 

And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty 
soul. 

VII. 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, 

A light shone round about the place ; 

The leper no longer crouched at his side. 

But stood before him glorified, 305 

Shining and tall and fair and straight 

As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, — 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 863 

Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 

VIII. 

His words were shed softer than leaves from the 
pine, 310 

And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon ; 
And the voice that was softer than silence said, 
" Lo, it is I, be not afraid ! 315 

In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail ; 
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 320 

This water His blood that died on the tree ; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed. 
In whatso we share with another's need : 
Not what we give, but what we share, — 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 325 

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, — 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 

rx. 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound : 

" The Grail in my castle here is found ! 

Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 330 

Let it be the spider's banquet hall ; 

He must be fenced with stronger mail 

Who would seek and find the Holy Grail." 

X. 

The castle gate stands open now, 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 335 



364 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 

No longer scowl the turrets tall, 
The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 
When the first poor outcast went in at the door, 
She entered with him in disguise, 340 

And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 
There is no spot she loves so well on ground. 
She lingers and smiles there the whole year round ; 
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 
Has hall and bower at his command ; 345 

And there 's no poor man in the North Countree 
But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 

Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, 

Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree, 

June is the pearl of our New England year. 

Still a surprisal, though expected long, 

Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait, 5 

Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back, 

Then, from some southern ambush in the sky. 

With one great gush of blossom storms the world. 

A week ago the sparrow was divine ; 

The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 10 

From post to post along the cheerless fence, 

Was as a rhymer ere the poet come ; 

But now, oh rapture ! sunshine winged and voiced, 

Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the 

West 
Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, is 

Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 365 

The bobolink has come, and, like the soul 
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird, 
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what 
Save June 1 Dear June ! JVow God he praised Jvr 
June. 20 

May is a pious fraud of the almanac, 

A ghastly parody of real Spring 

Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern 

wind ; 
Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date. 
And, with her handful of anemones, 25 

Herself as shivery, steal into the sun. 
The season need but turn his hour-glass round, 
And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, 
Keels back, and brings the dead May in his arms, 
Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front 30 

With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard 
All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books. 
While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect, 
Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams, 
I take my May down from the happy shelf 35 

Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row, 

17. Bryant has a charming poem, Robert of Lincoln, in which 
the light-hearted song of the bird gets a homelier but no less de- 
lightful interpretation. See, also, Lowell's Hues in Sunthin' in 
the Pastoral Line, No. VI. of the second series of The Biglow 
Papers : — 

" 'NuflE sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; 
HaK-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings. 
Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, 
Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair. 
Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air." 

28. In the fifth act of Shakespeare's King Lear, Lear enters 
with Cordelia dead in his arms. 



366 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Waiting my choice to open with full breast, 
And beg an alms of spring-time, ne'er denied 
In-doors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods 
Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year. 4o 

July breathes hot, sallows the crispy fields. 
Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac-hedge. 
And every eve cheats us with show of clouds 
That braze the horizon's western rim, or hang 
Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping idly, 45 

Like a dim fleet by starving men besieged. 
Conjectured half, and half descried afar. 
Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip back 
Adown the smooth curve of the oily sea. 

But June is full of invitations sweet, 50 

Forth from the chimney's yawn and thrice - read 

tomes 
To leisurely delights and sauntering thoughts 
That brook no ceiling narrower than the blue. 
The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane 
Brushes, then listens. Will he come f The bee, 55 
All dusty as a miller, takes his toll 
Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What a day 
To sun me and do nothing ! Nay, I think 
Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes 
The student's wiser business ; the brain eo 

That forages all climes to line its cells. 
Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish. 
Will not distil the juices it has sucked 
To the sweet substance of pellucid thought. 
Except for him who hath the secret learned 65 

44. That is, that give a brazen hue and hardness to the west- 
ern sky at sunset. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 367 

To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take 

The winds into his pulses. Hush ! 't is he ! 

My oriole, m}^ glance of summer fire, 

Is come at last, and, ever on the watch, 

Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly wound 70 

About the bough to help his housekeeping, — 

Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck, 

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way, 

Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs. 

Divines the providence that hides and helps. 75 

Heave^ ho ! Heave., ho ! he whistles as the twine 

Slackens its hold ; once more., now ! and a flash 

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm 

Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt. 

Nor all his booty is the thread ; he trails so 

My loosened thought with it along the air, 

And I must follow, would I ever find 

The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life. 

I care not how men trace their ancestry, 

To ape or Adam ; let them please their whim ; 85 

But I in June am midway to believe 

A tree among my far progenitors, 

Such sympathy is mine with all the race, 

Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 

There is between us. Surely there are times 90 

When they consent to own me of their kin, 

And condescend to me, and call me cousin. 

Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time, 

Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills 

Moving the lips, though fruitless of all words. 95 

And I have many a life-long leafy friend, 

Never estranged nor careful of my soul, 

That knows I hate the axe, and welcomes me 



368 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Within his tent as if I were a bird, 

Or other free companion of the earth, loo 

Yet un degenerate to the shifts of men. 

Among them one, an ancient willow, spreads 

Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round 

His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse. 

In outline like enormous beaker, fit 105 

For hand of Jotun, where 'mid snow and mist 

He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, spared, 

I know not by what grace, — for in the blood 

Of our New World subduers lingers yet 

Hereditary feud with trees, they being no 

(They and the red-man most) our father's foes, — 

Is one of six, a willow Pleiades, 

The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink 

Where the steep upland dips into the marsh. 

Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing, 115 

Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank. 

The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers 

And glints his steely aglets in the sun. 

Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom 

Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal 120 

Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike 

Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and whirl 

A rood of silver bellies to the day. 

Alas ! no acorn from the British oak 
'Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those 
rings 125 

106. Jotun is a giant in the Scandinavian mythology. 

112. The Pleiades were seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione ; 
to escape the hunter Orion, they begged to be changed in form, 
and were made a constellation in the heavens. Only six were 
visible to the naked eye, so the seventh was held to be a lost 
Pleiad, and several stories were told to account for the loss. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 369 

Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life 

Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed, 

Was ever planted here ! No darnel fancy 

Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields ; 

With horn and hoof the good old Devil came, i30 

The witch's broomstick was not contraband, 

But all that superstition had of fair, 

Or piety of native sweet, was doomed. 

And if there be who nurse unholy faiths. 

Fearing their god as if he were a wolf 135 

That snuffed round every home and was not seen, 

There should be some to watch and keep alive 

All beautiful beliefs. And such was that, — 

By solitary shepherd first surmised 

Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some maid mo 

Of royal stirp, that silent came and vanished, 

As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared 

Confess a mortal name, — that faith which gave 

A Hamadryad to each tree; and I 

Will hold it true that in this willow dwells 145 

The open-handed spirit, frank and blithe. 

Of ancient Hospitality, long since. 

With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of doors. 

In June 't is good to lie beneath a tree 

While the blithe season comforts every sense, i50 

Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart, 

Brimming it o'er with sweetness unawares. 

Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow 

Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up 

And tenderly lines some last-year robin's nest. 155 

There muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends, — 

Old friends ! The writing of those words has borne 

My fancy backward to the gracious past, 



370 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

The generous past, when all was possible, 

For all was then untried ; the years between leo 

Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none 

Wiser than this, — to spend in all things else, 

But of old friends to be most miserly. 

Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring, 

As to an oak, and precious more and more, les 

Without deservingness or help of ours. 

They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year, 

Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade. 

Sacred to me the lichens on the bark, 

Which Nature's milliners would scrape away ; no 

Most dear and sacred every withered limb ! 

'T is good to set them early, for our faith 

Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come. 

Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears. 

This willow is as old to me as life ; 175 

And under it full often have I stretched. 

Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive. 

And gathering virtue in at every pore 

Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased, 

Or was transfused in something to which thought iso 

Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was lost. 

Gone from me like an ache, and what remained 

Become a part of the universal joy. 

My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree. 

Danced in the leaves ; or, floating in the cloud, iss 

Saw its white double in the stream below ; 

Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy. 

Dilated in the broad blue over all. 

I was the wind that dappled the lush grass, 

The tide that crept with coolness to its roots, 190 

The thin-winged swallow skating on the air ; 

The life that gladdened everything was mine. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 371 

Was I then truly all that I beheld ? 

Or is this stream of being but a glass 

Where the mind sees its visionary self, 195 

As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his bay, 

Across the river's hollow heaven below. 

His picture flits, — another, yet the same ? 

But suddenly the sound of human voice 

Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 200 

Doth in opacous cloud precipitate 

The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved 

Into an essence rarer than its own, 

And I am narrowed to myself once more. 

For here not long is solitude secure, 205 

Nor Fantasy left vacant to her spell. 
Here, sometimes, in this paradise of shade, 
Rippled with western winds, the dusty Tramp, 
Seeing the treeless causey burn beyond. 
Halts to unroll his bundle of strange food 210 

And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help 
Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman. 
Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow 

warm. 
Himself his large estate and only charge, 
To be the guest of haystack or of hedge, 215 

Nobly superior to the household gear 
That forfeits us our privilege of nature. 
I bait him with my match-box and my pouch. 
Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke. 
His equal now, divinely unemployed. 220 

Some smack of Robin Hood is in the man. 
Some secret league with wild wood- wandering things ; 
He is our ragged Duke, our barefoot Earl, 
By right of birth exonerate from toil, 



372 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Who levies rent from us his tenants all, 225 

And serves the state by merely being. Here, 

The Scissors-grinder, pausing, doffs his hat. 

And lets the kind breeze, with its delicate fan, 

Winnow the heat from out his dank gray hair, — 

A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man, 230 

Whose feet are known to all the populous ways. 

And many men and manners he hath seen, 

Not without fruit of solitary thought. 

He, as the habit is of lonely men, — 

Unused to try the temper of their mind 235 

In fence with others, — positive and shy, 

Yet knows to put an edge upon his speech. 

Pithily Saxon in unwilling talk. 

Him I entrap with my long-suffering knife. 

And, while its poor blade hums away in sparks, 240 

Sharpen my wit upon his gritty mind, 

In motion set obsequious to his wheel, 

And in its quality not much unlike. 

Nor wants my tree more punctual visitors. 

The children, they who are the only rich, 245 

Creating for the moment, and possessing 

Whate'er they choose to feign, — for still with them 

Kind Fancy plays the fairy godmother. 

Strewing their lives with cheap material 

For winged horses and Aladdin's lamps, 250 

Pure elfin-gold, by manhood's touch profane 

To dead leaves disenchanted, — long ago 

Between the branches of the tree fixed seats, 

230. Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey, receives the epithet 
much-wandered in the first line of that poem, an epithet often re- 
peated, and is described as one who had seen many cities of men, 
and known many minds. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 373 

Making an o'erturned box their table. Oft 

The shrilling girls sit here between school hours, 255 

And play at What 's my thought like f while the boys, 

With whom the age chivalric ever bides, 

Pricked on by knightly spur of female eyes. 

Climb high to swing and shout on perilous boughs, 

Or, from the willow's armory equipped 260 

With musket dumb, green banner, edgeless sword. 

Make good the rampart of their tree-redoubt 

'Gainst eager British storming from below. 

And keep alive the tale of Bunker's Hill. 

Here, too, the men that mend our village ways, 265 

Vexing Macadam's ghost with pounded slate. 

Their nooning take ; much noisy talk they spend 

On horses and their ills ; and, as John Bull 

Tells of Lord This or That, who was his friend. 

So these make boast of intimacies long 270 

With famous teams, and add large estimates. 

By competition swelled from mouth to mouth. 

Of how much they could draw, till one, ill pleased 

To have his legend overbid, retorts : 

" You take and stretch truck-horses in a string 275 

From here to Long Wharf end, one thing I know. 

Not heavy neither, they could never draw, — 

Ensign's long bow ! " Then laughter loud and long. 

So they in their leaf-shadowed microcosm 

Image the larger world ; for wheresoe'er 280 

Ten men are gathered, the observant eye 

Will find mankind in little, as the stars 

Glide up and set, and all the heavens revolve 

266. Macadamized roads have kept alive the name of Sir John 
Loudon Macadam, who introduced them at the beginning of 
this century. 



374 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

In the small welkin of a drop of dew. 

I love to enter pleasure by a postern, 235 

Not the broad popular gate that gulps the mob ; 

To find my theatres in roadside nooks, 

Where men are actors, and suspect it not ; 

Where Nature all unconscious works her will, 

And every passion moves with easy gait, 290 

Unhampered by the buskin or the train. 

Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men 

Lead lonely lives, I love society, 

Nor seldom find the best with simple souls 

Unswerved by culture from their native bent, 295 

The ground we meet on being primal man 

And nearer the deep bases of our lives. 

But oh, half heavenly, earthly half, my soul. 
Canst thou from those late ecstasies descend. 
Thy lips still wet with the miraculous wine 300 

That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff 
To such divinity that soul and sense, 
Once more commingled in their source, are lost, — 
Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar thirst 
With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world ? 305 
Well, if my nature find her pleasure so, 
I am content, nor need to blush ; I take 
My little gift of being clean from God, 
Not haggling for a better, holding it 
Good as was ever any in the world, 310 

My days as good and full of miracle. 
I pluck my nutriment from any bush. 
Finding out poison as the first men did 
By tasting and then suffering, if I must. 
Sometimes my bush burns, and sometimes it is sis 

315. As did Moses's bush. 



UNDER THE WILLOWS. 375 

A leafless wilding shivering by the wall ; 
But I have known when winter barberries 
Pricked the effeminate palate with surprise 
Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine. 



320 



Oh, benediction of the higher mood 

And human-kindness of the lower ! for both 

I will be grateful while I live, nor question 

The wisdom that hath made us what we are, 

With such large range as from the ale-house bench 

Can reach the stars and be with both at home. 325 

They tell us we have fallen on prosy days, 

Condemned to glean the leavings of earth's feast 

Where gods and heroes took delight of old ; 

But though our lives, moving in one dull round 

Of repetition infinite, become 330 

Stale as a newspaper once read, and though 

History herself, seen in her workshop, seem 

To have lost the art that dyed those glorious panes 

Rich with memorial shapes of saint and sage. 

That pave with splendor the Past's dusky aisles, — 335 

Panes that enchant the light of common day 

With colors costly as the blood of kings. 

Till with ideal hues it edge our thought, — 

Yet while the world is left, while nature lasts, 

And man the best of nature, there shall be 340 

Somewhere contentment for these human hearts, 

Some freshness, some unused material 

For wonder and for song. I lose myself 

In other ways where solemn guide-posts say. 

This way to Knowledge., this way to Repose^ 345 

But here, here only, I am ne'er betrayed. 

For every by-path leads me to my love. 



376 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 

God's passionless reformers, influences, 

That purify and heal and are not seen. 

Shall man say whence your virtue is, or how 350 

Ye make medicinal the wayside weed ? 

I know that sunshine, through whatever rift 

How shaped it matters not, upon my walls 

Paints discs as perfect-rounded as its source, 

And, like its antitype, the ray divine, 355 

However finding entrance, perfect still, 

Repeats the image unimpaired of God. 

We, who by shipwreck only find the shores 

Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at first ; 

Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, seo 

That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps, 

The shock and sustenance of solid earth ; 

Inland afar we see what temples gleam 

Through immemorial stems of sacred groves, 

And we conjecture shining shapes therein ; ses 

Yet for a space we love to wonder here 

Among the shells and sea-weed of the beach. 

So mused I once within my willow-tent 
One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest, 
Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day 370 

That made us bitter at our neighbors' sins. 
Brimmed the great cup of heaven with sparkling cheer 
And roared a lusty stave ; the sliding Charles, 
Blue toward the west, and bluer and more blue. 
Living and lustrous as a woman's eyes 375 

Look once and look no more, with southward curve 
Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's hair 
Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold ; 
From blossom-clouded orchards, far away 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 377 

The bobolink tinkled ; the deep meadows flowed sso 
With multitudinous pulse of light and shade 
Against the bases of the southern hills, 
While here and there a drowsy island rick 
Slept and its shadow slept ; the wooden bridge 
Thundered, and then was silent ; on the roofs 385 

The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat ; 
Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain, 
All life washed clean in this high tide of June. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 

[Near Cambridge Common stauds an old elm, having at its 
base a stone with the inscription, " Under this tree Washington 
first took command of the American Army, July 3d, 1775." 
Upon the one hundredth anniversary of this day the citizens of 
Cambridge held a celebration under the tree, and Mr. Lowell 
read the following poem.] 

I. 

1. 

Words pass as wind, but where great deeds were done 
A power abides transfused from sire to son : 
The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his ear, 
That tingling through his pulse life-long shall run. 
With sure impulsion to keep honor clear, 5 

When, pointing down, h. ^ father whispers, " Here, 
Here, where we stand, sto ">d he, the purely Great, 
Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere. 
Then nameless, now a powd and mixed with fate." 
Historic town, thou boldest si cred dust, 10 

Once known to men as pious, -earned, just, 



378 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

And one memorial pile that dares to last ; 

But Memory greets with reverential kiss 

No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this, 

Touched by that modest glory as it past, 15 

O'er which yon elm hath piously displayed 

These hundred years its monumental shade. 

2. 

Of our swift passage through this scenery 

Of life and death, more durable than we, 

What landmark so congenial as a tree 20 

Kepeating its green legend every spring. 

And, with a yearly ring, 

Recording the fair seasons as they flee. 

Type of our brief but still-renewed mortality ? 

We fall as leaves : the immortal trunk remains, 25 

Builded with costly juice of hearts and brains 

Gone to the mould now, whither all that be 

Vanish returnless, yet are procreant still 

In human lives to come of good or ill. 

And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. 30 



II. 

1. 

Men's monuments, grown old, forget their names 
They should eternize, but the place 
Where shining souls have passed imbibes a grace 
Beyond mere earth ; some sweetness of their fames 

12. Memorial Hall, built by the alumni of Harvard, in memory 
of those who fell in the war for union, a structure embodying 
more serious thought than any other in Cambridge, and among 
the few in the country built to endure., 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 379 

Leaves in the soil its unextinguished trace, 35 

Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aims, 

That penetrates our lives and heightens them or 

shames. 
This insubstantial world and fleet 
Seems solid for a moment when we stand 
On dust ennobled by heroic feet 40 

Once mighty to sustain a tottering land. 
And mighty still such burthen to upbear. 
Nor doomed to tread the path of things that merely 

were : 
Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, 
Across the mists of Lethe's sleepy stream 45 

Recalls him, the sole chief without a blot. 
No more a pallid image and a dream. 
But as he dwelt with men decorously supreme. 

2. 

Our grosser minds need this terrestrial hint 

To raise long-buried days from tombs of print : 

" Here stood he," softly we repeat. 

And lo, the statue shrined and still. 

In that gray minster-front we call the Past, 

Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, 

Breathes living air and mocks at Death's deceit. 

It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at last, 

Its features human with familiar light, 

A man, beyond the historian's art to kill. 

Or sculptor's to efface with patient chisel-blight. 

3. 

Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught eo 
Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom 
Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom 



50 



55 



380 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought 

Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 

So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 65 

In history's fragmentary tale 

Bright clews of continuity. 

Learn that high natures over Time prevail, 

And feel ourselves a link in that entail 

That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 70 



III. 

1. 

Beneath our consecrated elm 
A century ago he stood. 

Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood 
Whose red surge sought, but could not overwhelm 
The life foredoomed to wield our rough - hewn 
helm : — 75 

From colleges, where now the gown 
To arms had yielded, from the town, 
Our rude self -summoned levies flocked to see 
The new-come chiefs and wonder which was he. 
No need to question long ; close-lipped and tall, so 
Long trained in murder-brooding forests lone 
To bridle others' clamors and his own. 
Firmly erect, he towered above them all, 

73. Referring to Braddock's defeat, when Washington wrote 
to his brother : " By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence 
I have been protected beyond all human probability or expecta- 
tion ; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses 
shot under me, yet I escaped unhurt, although death was levelling 
my companions on every side of me." 

76. Study in Cambridge was suspended, the college buildings 
were used as barracks, and the students were sent to Concord. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 881 

The incarnate discipline that was to free 

With iron curb that armed democracy. 85 

2. 

A motley rout was that which came to stare, 
In raiment tanned by years of sun and storm, 
Of every shape that was not uniform, 
Dotted with regimentals here and there ; 
An army all of captains, used to pray 90 

And stiff in fight, but serious drill's despair, 
Skilled to debate their orders, not obey ; 
Deacons were there, selectmen, men of note 
In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round with woods, 
Ready to settle Freewill by a vote, 95 

But largely liberal to its private moods ; 
Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or pen, 
Or ruder arms, their rights as Englishmen, 
Nor much fastidious as to how and when : 
Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 100 

A thought-staid army or a lasting state : 
Haughty they said he was, at first ; severe ; 
But owned, as all men own, the steady hand 
Upon the bridle patient to command. 
Prized, as all prize, the justice pure from fear, 105 

And learned to honor first, then love him, then re- 
vere. 
Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint 
And purpose clean as light from every selfish taint. 

86. The letters of Washington and of other generals in the 
early part of the Revolutionary war bear repeated witness to the 
undisciplined character of the troops. " I found a mixed multi- 
tude of people here," writes Washington, July 27th, " under 
very little discipline, order, or government." 



382 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

3. 

Musing beneath the legendary tree, 

The years between furl off : I seem to see no 

The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage through, 

Dapple with gold his sober buff and blue 

And weave prophetic aureoles round the head 

That shines our beacon now nor darkens with the dead. 

O man of silent mood, us 

A stranger among strangers then, 

How art thou since renowned the Great, the Good, 

Familiar as the day in all the homes of men ! 

The winged years, that winnow praise and blame, 

Blow many names out : they but fan to flame 120 

The self -renewing splendors of thy fame. 



IV. 

1. 

How many subtlest influences unite. 

With spiritual touch of joy or pain, 

Invisible as air and soft as light, 

To body forth that image of the brain 125 

We call our Country, visionary shape. 

Loved more than woman, fuller of fire than wine, 

Whose charm can none define, 

Nor any, though he flee it, can escape ! 

All party-colored threads the weaver Time 130 

Sets in his web, now trivial, now sublime, 

112. The American colors in the Revolution were buff and 
blue. Fox wore them in Parliament, as did Burke also on occa- 
sion. There is discussion as to the origin of the colors, for which 
see Stanhope's Miscellanies, First Series, pp. 116-122, and Pro- 
ceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, January, 1859, pp. 
149-154. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 383 

All memories, all forebodings, hopes and fears, 

Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, 

A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree, 

The casual gleanings of unreckoned years, 135 

Take goddess-shape at last and there is She, 

Old at our birth, new as the springing hours. 

Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our powers. 

Consoler, kindler, peerless 'mid her peers, 

A force that 'neath our conscious being stirs, wo 

A life to give ours permanence, when we 

Are borne to mingle our poor earth with hers. 

And all this glowing world goes with us on our biers. 

2. ' 

Nations are long results, by ruder ways 

Gathering the might that warrants length of days ; 145 

They may be pieced of half -reluctant shares 

Welded by hammer-strokes of broad-brained kings. 

Or from a doughty people grow, the heirs 

Of wise traditions widening cautious rings ; 

At best they are computable things, 150 

A strength behind us making us feel bold 

In right, or, as may chance, in wrong ; 

Whose force by figures may be summed and told, 

So many soldiers, ships, and dollars strong. 

And we but drops that bear compulsory part i56 

In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart ; 

But Country is a shape of each man's mind 

Sacred from definition, unconfined 

By the cramped walls where daily drudgeries grind ; 

An inward vision, yet an outward birth i6« 

Of sweet familiar heaven and earth ; 

A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind 

Of wings within our embryo being's shell 



384 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

That wait but lier completer spell 

To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare i65 

Life's nobler spaces and untarnished air. 

3. 
You, who hold dear this self -conceived ideal, 
Whose faith and works alone can make it real. 
Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine 
Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine no 
And feeds the lamp of manhood more divine 
With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy. 
When all have done their utmost, surely he 
Hath given the best who gives a character 
Erect and constant, which nor any shock 175 

Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea 
Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir 
From its deep bases in the living rock 
Of ancient manhood's sweet security : 
And this he gave, serenely far from pride iso 

As baseness, born with prosperous stars allied. 
Part of what nobler seed shall in our loins abide. 

4. 

No bond of men as common pride so strong. 
In names time-filtered for the lips of song. 
Still operant, with the primal Forces bound, i85 

Whose currents, on their spiritual round. 
Transfuse our mortal will nor are gainsaid : 
These are their arsenals, these the exhaustless mines 
That give a constant heart in great designs ; 
These are the stuff whereof such dreams are made 190 
190. A reminiscence of Shakespeare's lines : — 

" We are such stuff 
As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep." 

The Tempest, Act IV. Scene 1. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 385 

As make heroic men : thus surely he 

Still holds in place the massy blocks he laid 

'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly 

The seK-control that makes and keeps a people free. 



V. 

1. 

Oh for a drop of that Cornelian ink 195 

Which gave Agricola dateless length of days, 

To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve 

To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink, 

With him so statue-like in sad reserve. 

So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve ! 200 

Nor need I shun due influence of his fame 

Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as now 

The equestrian shape with unimpassioned brow. 

That paces silent on through vistas of acclaim. 

2. 

What figure more immovably august 205 

Than that grave strength so patient and so pure, 

Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, sure. 

That mind serene, impenetrably just. 

Modelled on classic lines so simple they endure ? 

That soul so softly radiant and so white 210 

The track it left seems less of fire than light, 

Cold but to such as love distemperature ? 

And if pure light, as some deem, be the force 

That drives rejoicing planets on their course. 

Why for his power benign seek an impurer source ? 215 

195. It was Caius Cornelius Tacitus who wrote in imperishable 
words the life of Agricola. 



386 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

His was the true enthusiasm that burns long, 

Domestically bright, 

Fed from itself and shy of human sight. 

The hidden force that makes a lifetime strong, 

And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 220 

Passionless, say you ? What is passion for 

But to sublime our natures and control 

To front heroic toils with late return, 

Or none, or such as shames the conqueror ? 

That fire was fed with substance of the soul 225 

And not with holiday stubble, that could burn, 

Unpraised of men who after bonfires run. 

Through seven slow years of unadvancing war. 

Equal when fields were lost or fields were won. 

With breath of popular applause or blame, 230 

Nor fanned nor damped, unquenchably the same, 

Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle fame. 

3. 

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; 

High-poised example of great duties done 

Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn 235 

As life's indifferent gifts to all men born ; 

Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, 

But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, 

Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, 

Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content ; 240 

Modest, yet firm as Nature's self ; unblamed 

Save by the men his nobler temper shamed ; 

Never seduced through show of present good 

By other than unsetting lights to steer 

New -trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast 

mood 245 

239. At Valley Forge. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 387 

More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear ; 
Kigid, but with himself first, grasping still 
In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will ; 
Not honored then or now because he wooed 
The popular voice, but that he still withstood ; 250 

Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one 
Who was all this and ours, and all men's, — Wash- 
ington. 

4. 

Minds strong by fits, irregularly great. 

That flash and darken like revolving lights, 

Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled to wait 255 

On the long curve of patient days aiid nights 

Rounding a whole life to the circle fair 

Of orbed fulfilment ; and this balanced soul. 

So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare 

Of draperies theatric, standing there 260 

In perfect symmetry of self-control. 

Seems not so great at first, but greater grows 

Still as we look, and by experience learn 

How grand this quiet is, how nobly stern 

The discipline that wrought through lifelong throes 265 

That energetic passion of repose. 

5. 
A nature too decorous and severe, 
Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, 
For ardent girls and boys 

Who find no genius in a mind so clear 270 

That its grave depths seem obvious and near, 
Nor a soul great that made so little noise. 
They feel no force in that calm-cadenced phrase, 
267. See note to The School-Boy, p. 335, 1. 71. 



388 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

The habitual full-dress of his well-bred mind, 

That seems to pace the minuet's courtly maze 275 

And tell of ampler leisures, roomier length of days. 

His firm-based brain, to self so little kind 

That no tumultuary blood could blind, 

Formed to control men, not amaze, 

Looms not like those that borrow height of haze : 280 

It was a world of statelier movement then 

Than this we fret in, he a denizen 

Of that ideal Rome that made a man for men. 



VI. 

1. 

The longer on this earth we live 

And weigh the various qualities of men, 235 

Seeing how most are fugitive. 

Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, 

Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters of the fen. 

The more we feel the high stern-featured beauty 

Of plain devotedness to duty, 290 

Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise. 

But finding amplest recompense 

For life's ungarlanded expense 

In work done squarely and unwasted days. 

For this we honor him, that he could know 295 

How sweet the service and how free 

Of her, God's eldest daughter here below. 

And choose in meanest raiment which was she. 

288. Daughters of the fen, — will - o' - the - wisps. The Welsh 
call the same phenomenon corpse-lights, because it was supposed 
to forbode death, and to show the road that the corpse would 
take. 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 389 

2. 
Placid completeness, life without a fall 
From faith or highest aims, truth's breachless wall, 300 
Surely if any fame can bear the touch. 
His will say " Here ! " at the last trumpet's call. 
The unexpressive man whose life expressed so much. 



VII. 

1. 

Never to see a nation born 

Hath been given to mortal man, 305 

Unless to those who, on that summer morn, 

Gazed silent when the great Virginian 

Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash 

Shot union through the incoherent clash 

Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 310 

Around a single will's unpliant stem, 

And making purpose of emotion rash. 

Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, 

Nebulous at first but hardening to a star. 

Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, sis 

The common faith that made us what we are. 

2. 

That lifted blade transformed our jangling clans. 
Till then provincial, to Americans, 
And made a unity of wildering plans ; 
Here was the doom fixed : here is marked the date 320 
When the New World awoke to man's estate, 
Burnt its last ship and ceased to look behind : 
Nor thoughtless was the choice ; no love or hate 
Could from its poise move that deliberate mind, 



390 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Weighing between too early and too late 325 

Those pitfalls of the man refused by Fate i 
His was the impartial vision of the great 
Who see not as they wish, but as they find. 
He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less 
The incomputable perils of success ; 330 

The sacred past thrown by, an empty rind ; 
The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets blind ; 
The waste of war, the ignominy of peace ; 
On either hand a sullen rear of woes. 
Whose garnered lightnings none could guess, 335 

Piling its thunder-heads and muttering " Cease ! '* 
Yet drew not back his hand, but bravely chose 
The seeming-desperate task whence our new nation 
rose. 

3. 

A noble choice and of immortal seed ! 

Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance 340 

Or easy were as in a boy's romance ; 

The man's whole life preludes the single deed 

That shall decide if his inheritance 

Be with the sifted few of matchless breed. 

Our race's sap and sustenance, 345 

Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and 

feed. 
Choice seems a thing indifferent ; thus or so, 
What matters it ? The Fates with mocking face 
Look on inexorable, nor seem to know 
Where the lot lurks that gives life's foremost place. 350 
Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still, 

351. See Shakespeare's play of The Merchant of Venice, with 
its three caskets of gold, silver, and lead, from which the suitors 
of Portia were to choose fate. 



360 



UNDER THE OLD ELM. 391 

And but two ways are offered to our will, 

Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace, 

The problem still for us and all of human race. 

He chose, as men choose, where most danger showed, 355 

Nor ever faltered 'neath the load 

Of petty cares, that gaU great hearts the most. 

But kept right on the strenuous up-hill road. 

Strong to the end, above complaint or boast : 

The popular tempest on his rock-mailed coast 

Wasted its wind-borne spray. 

The noisy marvel of a day ; 

His soul sate still in its unstormed abode. 



VIII. 

Virginia gave us this imperial man 

Cast in the massive mould 365- 

Of those high-statured ages old 

Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran ; 

She gave us this unblemished gentleman : 

What shall we give her back but love and praise 

As in the dear old unestranged days 370 

Before the inevitable wrong began ? 

Mother of States and undiminished men, 

Thou gavest us a country, giving him. 

And we owe alway what we owed thee then : 

The boon thou wouldst have snatched from us agen 375 

Shines as before with no abatement dim. 

A great man's memory is the only thing 

With influence to outlast the present whim 

And bind us as when here he knit our golden ring. 

All of him that was subject to the hours 380 

Lies in thy soil and makes it part of ours : 



392 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Across more recent graves, 

Where unresentful Nature waves 

Her pennons o'er the shot-ploughed sod, 

Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, 385 

We from this consecrated plain stretch out 

Our hands as free from afterthought or doubt 

As here the united North 

Poured her embrowned manhood forth 

In welcome of our saviour and thy son. 390 

Through battle we have better learned thy worth. 

The long-breathed valor and undaunted will. 

Which, like his own, the day's disaster done. 

Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. 

Both thine and ours the victory hardly won ; 395 

If ever with distempered voice or pen 

We have misdeemed thee, here we take it back, 

And for the dead of both don common black. 

Be to us evermore as thou wast then. 

As we forget thou hast not always been, 400 

Mother of States and unpolluted men, 

Virginia, fitly named from England's manly queen. 



AGASSIZ. 

[Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was of Swiss birth, having 
been born in Canton Vaud, Switzerland, in 1807 (see Longfellow's 
pleasing poem, The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz), and had already 
made a name as a naturalist when he came to this country to 
pursue investigations in 1846. Here he was persuaded to re- 
main, and after that identified himself with American life and 
learning. He was a masterly teacher, and by his personal enthu- 
siasm and influence did more than any other man in America to 

385. See note to p. 217, 1. 741, 



AGASSIZ. 393 

stimulate study in natural history (see Appendix). Through his 
influence a great institution, the Museum of Comparative Zool- 
ogy, was established at Cambridge, in association with Harvard 
University, and he remained at the head of it until his death in 
1873. His home was in Cambridge, and he endeared himself to 
all with whom he was associated by the unselfishness of his am- 
bition, the generosity of his affection, and the liberality of his 
nature. Lowell was in Florence at the time of Agassiz's death, 
and sent home this poem, which was published in The Atlantic 
Monthly for May, 1874. Longfellow, besides in the poem men- 
tioned above, has written of Agassiz in his sonnets, Three Friends 
of Mine y in., and Whittier wrote The Prayer of Agassiz. These 
poems are well worth comparing, as indicating characteristic 
strains of the three poets.] 



Come 
Dicesti egli ebbe f non viv' egli ancora ? 
Non fiere gli occhi suoi lo dolce lome ? 

Dante, Inferno, Canto X. lines 67-69. 
[How 
Saidst thou, — he had ? Is he not still alive ? 
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eye ? 

Longfellow, Translation.'] 



I. 
1. 

The electric nerve, whose instantaneous thrill 
Makes next-door gossips of the antipodes, 
Confutes poor Hope's last fallacy of ease, — 
The distance that divided her from ill : 
Earth sentient seems again as when of old s 

The horny foot of Pan 

6. Since Pan was the deity supposed to pervade all nature, the 
mysterious noises which issued from rocks or caves in mountain- 
ous regions were ascribed to him, and an unreasonable fear 
springing from sudden or unexplained causes came to be called a 
panic. 



lU 



394 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Stamped, and the cod scions horror ran 
Beneath men's feet through all her fibres cold : 
Space's blue walls are mined ; we feel the throe 
From underground of our night-mantled foe : 

The flame-winged feet 
Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run 
Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, 

Are mercilessly fleet. 
And at a bound annihilate 15 

Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve ; 

Surely ill news might wait, 
And man be patient of delay to grieve. 

Letters have sympathies 
And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 

To senses finer than the eyes, 
Their errand's purport ere we break the seal ; 
They wind a sorrow round with circumstance 
To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace 
The veil that darkened from our sidelong glance 25 

The inexorable face : 
But now Fate stuns as with a mace ; 
The savage of the skies, that men have caught 
And some scant use of language taught. 

Tells only what he must, — 30 

The steel-cold fact in one laconic thrust. 

2. 

So thought I, as, with vague, mechanic eyes, 

I scanned the festering news we half despise 

Yet scramble for no less, 

12. Mercury, the messenger of the gods, and fabled to have 
winged sandals, was the tutelar divinity of merchants, so that in 
a double way the modern application to the spirit of the electric 
telegraph becomes fit. 



AGASSIZ. 395 

And read of public scandal, private fraud, 35 

Crime flaimting scot-free while the mob applaud, 
Office made vile to bribe unworthiness. 

And all the unwholesome mess 
The Land of Honest Abraham serves of late 

To teach the Old World how to wait, 40 

When suddenly, 
As happens if the brain, from overweight 

Of blood, infect the eye, 
Three tiny words grew lurid as I read. 
And reeled commingling : Agassiz is dead. 45 

As when, beneath the street's familiar jar. 

An earthquake's alien omen rumbles far, 

39. At the time when this poem was written there was a suc- 
cession of terrible disclosures in America of public and private 
corruption ; loud vaunts were made of dishonoring the national 
word in financial matters, and there were few who did not look 
almost with despair upon the condition of public affairs. Tlie 
aspect was even more sharply defined to those Americans who, 
travelling in Europe, found themselves openly or silently regarded 
as representatives of a nation that seemed to be disgracing itself. 
Lowell's bitter words were part of the goadings of conscience 
which worked so sharply in America in the years immediately 
following. He was reproached by some for such words as this 
line contains, and, when he published his Three Memorial Poems, 
made this noble self-defence which stands in the front of that 
little book : — 

" If I let fall a word of bitter mirth 
When public shames more shameful pardon won, 
Some have misjudged me, and my service done, 
K small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth : 
Through veins that drew their life from Western earth 
Two hundred years and more my blood hath run 
In no polluted course from sire to son ; 
And thus was I predestined ere my birth 
To love the soil wherewith my fibres own 
Instinctive sympathies ; yet love it so 
As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone 
Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego 
The son's right to a mother dearer grown 
With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow." 



396 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Men listen and forebode, I hung my head, 

And strove the present to recall, 

As if the blow that stunned were yet to fall. 50 

3. 

Uprooted is our mountain oak, 
That promised long security of shade 
And brooding-place for many a winged thought ; 

Not by Time's sof tly-cadenced stroked 
With pauses of relenting pity stayed, 55 

But ere a root seemed sapt, a bough decayed, 
From sudden ambush by the whirlwind caught 
And in his broad maturity betrayed ! 

4. 

Well might I, as of old, appeal to you, 

O mountains, woods, and streams, 60 

To help us mourn him, for ye loved him too ; 

But simpler moods befit our modern themes. 
And no less perfect birth of nature can. 
Though they yearn tow'rd him, sympathize with man. 
Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall ; es 

59. In classical mythology Adonis was fabled as a lovely youth, 
killed by a boar, and lamented long by Venus, who was inconsol- 
able for his loss. The poets used this story for a symbol of grief, 
and when mourning the loss of a human being were wont to call 
on nature to join in the lamentation. This classic form of mourn- 
ing descended in literature and at different times has found very 
beautiful expression, as in Milton's Lycidas and Shelley's Adonais, 
which is a lament over the dead poet Keats. Here the poet 
might justly call on nature to lament the death of her great stu- 
dent, but he turns from the form as too classic and artificial and 
remote from his warmer sympathy. In his own strong sense of 
human life he demands a fellowship of grief from no lower order 
of nature than man himself. 



AGASSIZ. 397 

Answer ye rather to my call, 
Strong poets of a more unconscious day, 
When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, 
Too much for softer arts forgotten since 
That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 7o 
And drown in music the heart's bitter cry ! 
Lead me some steps in your directer way, 
Teach me those words that strike a solid root 

Within the ears of men ; 
Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, 75 

Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, — 
For he was masculine from head to heel. 
Nay, let himself stand undiminished by 
With those clear parts of him that will not die. 
Himself from out the recent dark I claim so 

To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame ; 
To show himself, as still I seem to see, 
A mortal, built upon the antique plan, 
Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran. 
And taking life as simply as a tree ! 85 

To claim my foiled good by let him appear, 
Large-limbed and human as I saw him near, 
Loosed from the stiffening uniform of fame : 
And let me treat him largely : I should fear, 
(If with too prying lens I chanced to err, 90 

Mistaking catalogue for character,) 
His wise forefinger raised in smiling blame. 

76. Chapman and Ben Jonson were contemporaries of Shake- 
speare. The former is best known by his rich, picturesque trans- 
lation of Homer. Lowell may easily have had in mind, among 
Jonson's Elegies, his majestic ode, On the Death of Sir Lucius 
Gary and Sir H. Morison. He rightly claims for the poets of 
the Elizabethan age a frankness and largeness of speech rarely 
heard in our more refined and restrained time. 

86. Since the poet could not be by Agassiz at the last. 



398 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 

Nor would I scant him with judicial breath 

And turn mere critic in an epitaph ; 

I choose the wheat, incurious of the chaff 95 

That swells fame living, chokes it after death, 

And would but memorize the shining half 

Of his large nature that was turned to me : 

Fain had I joined with those that honored him 

With eyes that darkened because his were dim, 100 

And now been silent ; but it might not be. 

n. 

1. 

In some the genius is a thing apart, 
A pillared hermit of the brain. 

Hoarding with incommunicable art 

Its intellectual gain ; 105 

Man's web of circumstance and fate 
They from their perch of self observe, 

Indifferent as the figures on a slate 

Are to the planet's sun-swung curve 

Whose bright returns they calculate ; no 

Their nice adjustment, part to part, 

Were shaken from its serviceable mood 

By unpremeditated stirs of heart 
Or jar of human neighborhood : 

Some find their natural selves, and only then, 115 

In furloughs of divine escape from men. 

And when, by that brief ecstasy left bare, 
Driven by some instinct of desire. 

They wander worldward, 't is to blink and stare, 

Like wild things of the wood about a fire, 120 

120. Travellers in the wilderness find their camp-fires the at- 
traction of the beasts that prowl about the camp. 



AGASSIZ. 399 

Dazed by the social glow they cannot share ; 

His nature brooked no lonely lair, 
But basked and bourgeoned in copartnery, 
Companionship, and open-windowed glee : 

He knew, for he had tried, 123 

Those speculative heights that lure 
The unpractised foot, impatient of a guide, 

Tow'rd ether too attenuately pure 
For sweet unconscious breath, though dear to pride. 

But better loved the foothold sure iso 

Of paths that wind by old abodes of men 
Who hope at last the churchyard's peace secure. 
And follow time-worn rules, that them suffice. 
Learned from their sires, traditionally wise. 
Careful of honest custom's how and when ; 135 

His mind, too brave to look on Truth askance. 
No more those habitudes of faith could share. 
But, tinged with sweetness of the old Swiss manse, 
Lingered around them still and fain would spare. 
Patient to spy a sullen Qgg for weeks, i4o 

The enigma of creation to surprise. 
His truer instinct sought the life that speaks 
Without a mystery from kindly eyes ; 
In no self-spun cocoon of prudence wound, 
He by the touch of men was best inspired, 145 

And caught his native greatness at rebound 
From generosities itself had fired ; 
Then how the heat through every fibre ran, 

125. " Agassiz was a born metaphysician, and moreover had 
pursued severe studies in philosophy. Those who knew him well 
were constantly surprised at the ease with which he handled 
the more intricate problems of thought." Theodore Lyman, in 
Recollections of Agassiz^ Atlantic Monthly, February, 1874. 



400 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Felt in the gathering presence of the man, 

While the apt word and gesture came unhid ! iso 

Virtues and faults it to one metal wrought, 

Fined all his blood to thought, 
And ran the molten man in all he said or did. 
All TuUy's rules and all Quintilian's too 
He by the light of listening faces knew, 155 

And his rapt audience all unconscious lent 
Their own roused force to make him eloquent ; 
Persuasion fondled in his look and tone ; 
Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring 
To find new charms in accents not her own ; 160 

Her coy constraints and icy hindrances 
Melted upon his lips to natural ease, 
As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. 
Nor yet all sweetness : not in vain he wore. 
Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled les 

By velvet courtesy or caution cold. 
That sword of honest anger prized of old, 

But, with two-handed wrath. 
If baseness or pretension crossed his path. 

Struck once nor needed to strike more. no 



2. 

His magic was not far to seek, — 
He was so human ! whether strong or weak, 
Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared, 
But sate an equal guest at every board : 
No beggar ever felt him condescend, 175 

154. TuUy is the now somewhat old-fashioned English way of 
referring to Marcus Tullius Cicero, whose book De Oratore and 
Quintilian's Institutiones Oratorice were the most celebrated an- 
cient works on rhetoric. 



AGASSIZ. 401 

No prince presume ; for still himself he bare 

At manhood's simple level, and where'er 

He met a stranger, there he left a friend. 

How large an aspect ! nobly unsevere, 

With freshness round him of Oympian cheer, iso 

Like visits of those earthly gods he came ; 

His look, wherever its good-fortune fell, 

Doubled the feast without a miracle. 

And on the hearthstone danced a happier flame ; 

Philemon's crabbed vintage grew benign ; iss 

Amphitryon's gold-juice humanized to wine. 



III. 

1. 

The garrulous memories 
Gather again from all their far-flown nooks, 
Singly at first, and then by twos and threes. 
Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks i90 

Thicken their twilight files 
Tow'rds Tintern's gray repose of roofless aisles : 
Once more I see him at the table's head 
When Saturday her monthly banquet spread 

To scholars, poets, wits, 195 

All choice, some famous, loving things, not names, 
And so without a twinge at others' fames, 

185. For the stories of Philemon and A mphitryon, see Ovid's 
Metamorphoses, viii. 631 and vi. 112. 

192. Tintern Abbey on the river Wye is one of the most fa- 
mous ruins in England. About this, as about other ruins and 
shaded buildings, the rooks make their home. 

194. A club known as the Saturday Club has for many years 
BQiet in Boston, and some of the prominent members are inti- 
mated in the following lines. 



402 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Such company as wisest moods befits, 
Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth 

Of undeliberate mirth, 200 

Natures benignly mixed of air and earth, 
Now with the stars and now with equal zest 
Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest. 

2. 

I see in vision the warm-lighted hall, 

The living and the dead I see again, 205 

And but my chair is empty ; 'mid them all 

'T is I that seem the dead : they all remain 

Immortal, changeless creatures of the brain : 

Well-nigh I doubt which world is real most. 

Of sense or spirit, to the truly sane ; 210 

In this abstraction it were light to deem 

Myself the figment of some stronger dream ; 

They are the real things, and I the ghost 

That glide unhindered through the solid door. 

Vainly for recognition seek from chair to chair, 215 

And strive to speak and am but futile air. 

As truly most of us are little more. 

3. 

Him most I see whom we most dearly miss, 

The latest parted thence. 
His features poised in genial armistice 220 

And armed neutrality of self-defence 
Beneath the forehead's walled preeminence. 
While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach. 
Settles off-hand our human how and whence ; 
The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears 225 
The infallible strategy of volunteers 
218. Agassiz himself. 



AG A SSI Z. 403 

Making through Nature's walls its easy breach, 
And seems to learn where he alone could teach. 
Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills 
As he our fireside were, our light and heat, 230 

Centre where minds diverse and various skills 
Find their warm nook and stretch unhampered feet ; 
I see the firm benignity of face, 
Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet, 
The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, 235 

The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips 
While Holmes's rockets curve their long ellipse, 
And burst in seeds of fire that burst again 
To drop in scintillating rain. 



4. 

There too the face half-rustic, half-divine, 240 

Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with humor fine, 
Of him who taught us not to mow and mope 
About our fancied selves, but seek our scope 
In Nature's world and Man's, nor fade to hollow 
trope, 
Content with our New World and timely bold 245 
To challenge the o'ermastery of the old ; 
Listening with eyes averse I see him sit 
Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit 

240. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The words half-rustic^ Jialf- 

divine, recall Lowell's earlier characterization in his Fable for 

Critics : — 

" A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range 
Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other the Exchange ; 
He seems, to my thinking (although I 'm afraid 
The comparison must, long ere this, have been made), 
A Plotinus Montaigne, where the Egyptian's gold mist 
And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek by jowl coexist." 

248. Judge E. R. Hoar. 



404 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

(Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again), 
While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline 250 

Curves sharper to restrain 
The merriment whose most unruly moods 
Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods 

Of silence-shedding pine : 
Hard by is he whose art's consoling spell 255 

Has given both worlds a whiff of asphodel. 
His look still vernal 'mid the wintry ring 
Of petals that remember, not foretell, 
The paler primrose of a second spring. 



5. 

And more there are : but other forms arise 260 

And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer eyes: 

First he from sympathy still held apart 

By shrinking over-eagerness of heart. 

Cloud charged with searching fire, whose shadow's 

sweep 
Heightened mean things with sense of brooding ill, 265 
And steeped in doom familiar field and hill, — 
New England's poet, soul reserved and deep, 
November nature with a name of May, 
Whom high o'er Concord plains we laid to sleep. 
While the orchards mocked us in their white array, 270 
And building robins wondered at our tears. 
Snatched in his prime, the shape august 
That should have stood unbent 'neath fourscore years, 
The noble head, the eyes of furtive trust. 

All gone to speechless dust ; 275 

255. Longfellow. 

262. Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was buried in Concord, May 
23, 1864. 



AGASSIZ. 405 

And he our passing guest, 
Shy nature, too, and stung with life's unrest. 
Whom we too briefly had but could not hold. 
Who brought ripe Oxford's culture to our board, 

The Past's incalculable hoard, 280 

Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in cloisters old, 
Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet 
With immemorial lisp of musing feet ; 
Young head time-tonsured smoother than a friar's. 
Boy face, but grave with answerless desires, 285 

Poet in all that poets have of best. 
But foiled with riddles dark and cloudy aims, 

Who now hath found sure rest, 
Not by still Isis or historic Thames, 
Nor by the Charles he tried to love with me, 290 

But, not misplaced, by Arno's hallowed brim. 
Nor scorned by Santa Croce's neighboring fames. 

Haply not mindless, wheresoe'er he be, 
Of violets that to-day I scattered over him ; 

He, too, is there, 295 

After the good centurion fitly named, 

276. Arthur Hugh Clough, an English poet, author of the 
Bothie of Toher-na-Vuolich, and editor of Dry den's Translation 
of Plutarch's Lives, who came to this country in 1852 with some 
purpose of making it his home, but returned to England in less 
than a year. He lived while here in Cambridge, and strong 
attachments grew up between him and the men of letters in 
Cambridge and Concord. 

291. Clough died in his forty-third year, November 13, 1861, 
and was buried in the little Protestant cemetery outside the 
walls of Florence. 

292. Santa Croce is the church in Florence where many illus- 
trious dead are buried, among them Michelangelo, Machiavelli, 
Galileo, Alfieri. 

296. Cornelius Conway Felton, Professor of Greek Language 
and Literature in Harvard College, and afterward President 
until his death in 1862. 



406 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Whom learning dulled not, nor convention tamed, 
Shaking with burly mirth his hyacinthine hair. 
Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways, 
Still found the surer friend where least he hoped the 
praise. 300 

6, 

Yea truly, as the sallowing years 
Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves 
Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days, 

And that unwakened winter nears, 
'T is the void chair our surest guest receives, 305 

'T is lips long cold that give the warmest kiss, 
'T is the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears ; 
We count our rosary by the beads we miss : 

To me, at least, it seemeth so. 
An exile in the land once found divine, sio 

While my starved fire burns low, 
And homeless winds at the loose casement whine 
Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apennine. 



IV. 

1. 

Now forth into the darkness all are gone. 

But memory, still unsated, follows on, 315 

Retracing step by step our homeward walk, 

With many a laugh among our serious talk. 

Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide. 

The long red streamers from the windows glide, 

319. In walking over West Boston bridge at night one sees 
the lights from the houses on Beacon Street reflected in the 



AG A SSI Z. 407 

Or the dim western moon 320 

Rocks her skiff's image on the broad lagoon, 
And Boston shows a soft Venetian side 
In that Arcadian light when roof and tree, 
Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy ; 
Or haply in the sky's cold chambers wide 325 

Shivered the winter stars, while all below, 
As if an end were come of human ill, 
The world was wrapt in innocence of snow 
And the cast-iron bay was blind and still ; 
These were our poetry ; in him perhaps 330 

Science had barred the gate that lets in dream. 
And he would rather count the perch and bream 
Than with the current's idle fancy lapse ; 
And yet he had the poet's open eye 
That takes a frank delight in all it sees, 335 

Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic sky, 
To him the life-long friend of fields and trees : 
Then came the prose of the suburban street, 
Its silence deepened by our echoing feet, 
And converse such as rambling hazard finds ; 340 

Then he who many cities knew and many minds 
And men once world-noised, now mere Ossian forms 
Of misty memory, bade them live anew 
As when they shared earth's manifold delight, 
In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true, 345 

water below and seeming to make one long light where flame 
and reflection join. 

341. See note to p. 372, 1. 230. 

342. Ossian was a fabulous Celtic warrior poet known chiefly 
through the pretended poems of Ossian of James Macpherson, 
who lived in Scotland the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
There has been much controversy over the exact relation of 
Macpherson to the poems, which are Scotch crags looming out 
of Scotch mists. 



408 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

And, with an accent heightening as he warms, 
Would stop forgetful of the shortening night, 
Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse 
Much wordly wisdom kept for others' use. 
Not for his own, for he was rash and free, 350 

His purse or knowledge all men's, like the sea. 
Still can I hear his voice's shrilling might 
(With pauses broken, while the fitful spark 
He blew more hotly rounded on the dark 
To hint his features with a Rembrandt light) 355 

Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or Lamarck, 
Or Cuvier's taller shade, and many more 
Whom he had seen, or knew from others' sight, 
And make them men to me as ne'er before : 
Not seldom, as the nndeadened fibre stirred m 

Of noble friendships knit beyond the sea, 
German or French thrust by the lagging word, 
For a good leash of mother-tongues had he. 
At last, arrived at where our paths divide, 
" Good night ; " and, ere the distance grew too 
wide, 365 

" Good night ! " again ; and now with cheated ear 
I half hear his who mine shall never he£.r. 

2. 

Sometimes it seemed as if New England air 
For his large lungs too parsimonious were, 
As if those empty rooms of dogma drear 



370 



356. Naturalists of renown. Oken was a remarkable and 
eccentric Swiss naturalist, 1779-1851; Humboldt a great natur- 
alist and traveller, known by his Kosmos, 1769-1859; Lamarck, 
1744-1829 ; Cuvier, in some respects the father of modern 
classification, and Agassiz's teacher, 1769-1832; all these were 
personally known to Agassiz. 



AGASSIZ. 409 

Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere 

Counting the horns o'er of the Beast, 
Still scaring those whose faith in it is least, 
As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere 
That sharpen all the needles of the East, 375 

Had been to him like death, 
Accustomed to draw Europe's freer breath 

In a more stable element ; 
Nay, even our landscape, half the year morose, 
Our practical horizon grimly pent, 38o 

Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze, 
Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close, 
Our social monotone of level days. 

Might make our best seem banishment ; 

But it was nothing so ; 385 

Haply his instinct might divine, 
Beneath our drift of puritanic snow. 

The marvel sensitive and fine 
Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow 
And trust its shyness to an air malign ; 390 

Well might he prize truth's warranty and pledge 
In the grim outcrop of our granite edge. 
Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need 
In the gaunt sons of Calvin's iron breed. 
As prompt to give as skilled to win and keep ; 395 
But, though such intuitions might not cheer. 
Yet life was good to him, and, there or here, 
With that sufficing joy, the day was never cheap ; 
Thereto his mind was its own ample sphere. 
And, like those buildings great that through the 

year 400 

Carry one temperature, his nature large 
Made its own climate, nor could any marge 
401. This is said of St. Peter's in Rome. 



410 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

Traced by convention stay him from his bent : 

He had a habitude of mountain air ; 

He brought wide outlook where he went, 405 

And could on sunny uplands dwell 
Of prospect sweeter than the pastures fair 
High-hung of viny Neufchatel, 
Nor, surely, did he miss 
Some pale, imaginary bliss 410 

Of earlier sights whose inner landscape still was 
Swiss. 

V. 

1. 

I cannot think he wished so soon to die 

With all his senses full of eager heat, 

And rosy years that stood expectant by 

To buckle the winged sandals on their feet, — 415 

He that was friends with earth, and all her sweet 

Took with both hands unsparingly : 

Truly this life is precious to the root. 

And good the feel of grass beneath the foot ; 

To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom, 420 

Tenants in common with the bees. 
And watch the white clouds drift through gulfs of 

trees. 
Is better than long waiting in the tomb ; 

Only once more to feel the coming spring 
As the birds feel it when it makes them sing, 425 
Only once more to see the moon 
Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms 

Curve her mild sickle in the West 
Sweet with the breath of hay-cocks, were a boon 
415. See note to p. 394, 1. 12. 



AGASSIZ. 411 

Worth any promise of soothsayer realms 430 

Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest ; 

To take December by the beard 
And crush the creaking snow with springy foot, 
While overhead the North's dumb streamers shoot 
Till Winter fawn upon the cheek endeared ; 435 

Then the long evening- ends 

Lingered by cozy chimney-nooks, 

With high companionship of books, 
Or slippered talk of friends 
And sweet habitual looks, 440 

Is better than to stop the ears with dust. 
Too soon the spectre comes to say, " Thou must ! " 

2. 

When toil-crooked hands are crost upon the breast. 

They comfort us with sense of rest ; 
They must be glad to lie forever still ; 445 

Their work is ended with their day ; 
Another fills their room ; 't is the World's ancient 
way. 

Whether for good or ill ; 
But the deft spinners of the brain. 
Who love each added day and find it gain, 450 
Them overtakes the doom 
To snap the half -grown flower upon the loom 
(Trophy that was to be of life-long pain). 
The thread no other skill can ever knit again. 

'T was so with him, for he was glad to live, 455 
'T was doubly so, for he left work begun ; 
Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive 
Till aU the allotted flax were spun ? 
It matters not ; for, go at night or noon, 
A friend, whene'er he dies, has died too soon, 460 



412 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

And, once we hear the hopeless He is dead, 
So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is said. 



VI. 



1. 

I seem to see the black procession go : 
That crawling prose of death too well I know, 
The vulgar paraphrase of glorious woe ; 465 

I see it wind through that unsightly grove, 
Once beautiful, but long defaced 
With granite permanence of cockney taste 
And all those grim disfigurements we love : 
There, then, we leave him ; Him ? such costly 
waste 470 

Nature rebels at : and it is not true 
Of those most precious parts of him we knew ; 
Could we be conscious but as dreamers be, 
'T were sweet to leave this shifting life of tents 
Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity ; 476 

Nay, to be mingled with the elements. 
The fellow-servant of creative powers, 
Partaker in the solemn year's events. 
To share the work of busy-fingered hours. 
To be night's silent almoner of dew, 48o 

To rise again in plants and breathe and grow, 
To stream as tides the ocean cavern through, 
Or with the rapture of great winds to blow 
About earth's shaken coignes, were not a fate 

To leave us all-disconsolate ; 485 

Even endless slumber in the sweetening sod 

Of charitable earth 

466. Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge, where Agassiz 
lies. 



AGASSI Z. 413 

That takes out all our mortal stains, 
And makes us clearlier neighbors of the clod, 
Methinks were better worth 490 

Than the poor fruit of most men's wakeful pains, 
The heart's insatiable ache : 
But such was not his faith, 
Nor mine : it may be he had trod 
Outside the plain old path of God thus spahe^ 495 
But God to him was very God, 
And not a visionary wraith 
Skulking in murky corners of the mind, 

And he was sure to be 
Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as He, 500 

Not with His essence mystically combined. 
As some high spirits long, but whole and free, 

A perfected and conscious Agassiz. 
And such I figure him : the wise of old 
Welcome and own him of their peaceful fold, 505 
Not truly with the guild enrolled 
Of him who seeking inward guessed 
Diviner riddles than the rest. 
And groping in the darks of thought 
Touched the Great Hand and knew it not ; 510 
Rather he shares the daily light, 
From reason's charier fountains won, 
Of his great chief, the slow-paced Stagyrite, 
And Cuvier clasps once more his long-lost son. 

2. 

The shape erect is prone : forever stilled 515 

The winning tongue ; the forehead's high-piled heap, 

607. Plato. 

513. Aristotle, so called from his birthplace, Stagira in Mace- 
donia. 



414 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

A cairn which every science helped to build, 

Unvalued will its golden secrets keep : 

He knows at last if Life or Death be best : 

Wherever he be flown, whatever vest 520 

The being hath put on which lately here 

So many-friended was, so full of cheer 

To make men feel the Seeker's noble zest, 

We have not lost him all ; he is not gone 

To the dumb herd of them that wholly die ; 525 

The beauty of his better self lives on 

In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye 

He trained to Truth's exact severity ; 

He was a Teacher : why be grieved for him 

Whose living word still stimulates the air ? 530 

In endless files shall loving scholars come 

The glow of his transmitted touch to share, 

And trace his features with an eye less dim 

Than ours whose sense familiar wont makes numb. 

Florence, Italy, February^ 1874. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

To many readers the name of Emerson is that of a phi- 
losophical prose writer, hard to be understood ; in time to 
come it wiU perhaps be wondered at that the introduction of 
his name in a volume of American Poems should seem to 
require an explanation or shadow of an apology ; it is likely 
even that his philosophy will be read and welcomed chiefly 
for those elements which it has in common with his poe- 
try. His life may be called uneventful as regards external 
change or adventure. It was passed mainly in Boston and 
Concord, Massachusetts. He was born in Boston, May 25, 
1803. His father, his grandfather, and his great-grand- 
father were all ministers, and, indeed, on both his father's 
and mother's side he belonged to a continuous line of ministe- 
rial descent from the seventeenth century. At the time of 
his birth, his father, the Rev. William Emerson, was minis- 
ter of the First Church congregation, but on his death a few 
years afterward, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a boy of seven, 
went to live in the old manse at Concord, where his grand- 
father had lived when the Concord fight occurred. The old 
manse was afterward the home at one time of Hawthorne, 
who wrote there the stories which he gathered into the vol- 
umes, Mosses from an Old Manse. 

Emerson was graduated at Harvard in 1821, and after 
teaching a year or two gave himself to the study of divinity. 
From 1827 to 1832 he preached in Unitarian churches, and 
was for four years a colleague pastor in the Second Church 



416 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

in Boston. He then left the ministry and afterward de- 
voted himself to literature. He travelled abroad in 1833, 
in 1847, and again in 1872, making friends among the lead- 
ing thinkers during his first journey, and confirming the 
friendships when again in Europe ; with the exception of 
these three journeys and occasional lecturing tours in the 
United States, he lived quietly at Concord until his death, 
April 27, 1882. 

He had delivered several special addresses, and in his 
early manhood was an important lecturer in the Lyceum 
courses which were so popular, especially in New England, 
forty years ago, but his first published book was Nature, in 
1839. Subsequent prose writings were his Essays, under 
that title, and in several volumes with specific titles. Repre- 
sentative Men and English Traits, which last embodies the 
results of his first two visits to England. 

He wrote poems when in college, but his first publication 
was through The Dial, a magazine established in 1840, and 
the representative of a knot of men and women of whom 
Emerson was the acknowledged or unacknowledged leader. 
The first volume of his poems was published in 1847, and 
included those by which he is best known, as The Problem, 
The Sphinx, The Rhodora, The Humble Bee, Hymn Sung 
at the Completion of the Concord Monument. After the 
establishment of The Atlantic Monthly in 1857 he contrib- 
uted to it both prose and poetry, and verses published in 
the early numbers, mere enigmas to some, profound revela- 
tions to others, were fruitful of discussion and thought ; his 
second volume of poems. May Day and other Pieces, was 
not issued until 1867. Later, a volume of his collected 
poems appeared, containing most of those published in 
the two volumes, and a few in addition. We are told, 
however, that the published writings of Emerson bear but 
small proportion to the unpublished. Many lectures have 
been delivered, but not printed ; many poems written, and 
a few read, which have never been published. The in- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 417 

ference from this, borne out by the marks upon what has 
been published, is that Mr. Emerson set a high value upon 
literature, and was jealous of the prerogative of the poet. 
He is frequently called a seer, and this old word, indicating 
etymologically its original intention, is applied well to a poet 
who saw into nature and human life with a spiritual power 
which made him a marked man in his own time, and one 
destined to an unrivalled place in literature. He fulfilled 
Wordsworth's lines, — 

" With an eye made quiet by the power 
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
We see into the Hf e of things. " 

His literary executor, Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, collected 
Emerson's writings in twelve volumes, one containing his 
poetry, the remainder his prose, and also published a life 
of Emerson in two volumes. 



I. 

THE ADIRONDACS. 
A JOURNAL. 

DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW-TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST, 

1858. 

Wise and polite, — and if I drew 
Their several portraits, you would own 
Chaucer had no such worthy crew, 
Nor Boccace in Decameron. 

We crossed Champlain to Keeseville witli our friends, 

Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks 

Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach 

The Adirondac lakes. At Martin's Beach 

We chose our boats ; each man a boat and guide, — 5 

Ten men, ten guides, our company all told. 

Next morn, we swept with oars the Saranac, 
With skies of benediction, to Round Lake, 
Where all the sacred mountains drew around us, 
Tahawus, Seward, Maclntyre, Baldhead, 10 

And other Titans without muse or name. 
Pleased with these grand companions, we glide on. 
Instead of flowers, crowned with a wreath of hills. 
We made our distance wider, boat from boat, 
As each would hear the oracle alone. is 

By the bright morn the gay flotilla slid 
Through files of flags that gleamed like bayonets. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 419 

Through gold-motti-haunted beds of pickerel-flower, 

Through scented banks of lilies white and gold, 

Where tbe deer feeds at night, the teal by day, 20 

On through the Upper Saranac, and up 

Pere Raquette stream, to a small tortuous pass 

Winding through grassy shallows in and out, 

Two creeping miles of rushes, pads, and sponge, 

To Follansbee Water and the Lake of Loons. 25 

Northward the length of Follansbee we rowed. 
Under low mountains, whose unbroken ridge 
Ponderous with beechen forest sloped the shore. 
A pause and council : then, where near the head 
Due east a bay makes inward to the land 30 

Between two rocky arms, we climb the bank. 
And in the twilight of the forest noon 
Wield the first axe these echoes ever heard. 
We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts, 
Barked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof, 35 
Then struck a light, and kindled the camp-fire. 

The wood was sovran with centennial trees, — 
Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir. 
Linden and spruce. In strict society 
Three conifers, white, pitch, and Norway pine, 4o 

Five-leaved, three-leaved, and two-leaved, grew thereby. 
Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth. 
The maple eight, beneath its shapely tower. 

" Welcome ! " the wood-god murmured through the 
leaves, — 

37. Milton frequently employed the form sovran for sover- 
eign, although in many editions the spelling has been changed 
to the longer form. 



420 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

* Welcome, thougli late, unknowing, yet known to 
me.' 45 

Evening drew on ; stars peeped through maple-boughs, 
Which o'erhung, like a cloud, our camping fire. 
Decayed millennial trunks, like moonlight flecks, 
Lit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor. 

Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft 50 

In well-hung chambers daintily bestowed. 
Lie here on hemlock boughs, like Sacs and Sioux, 
And greet unanimous the joyful change. 
So fast will Nature acclimate her sons, 
Though late returning to her pristine ways. 55 

Off soundings, seamen do not suffer cold ; 
And, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned, 
Sleep on the fragrant brush as on down-beds. 
Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air 
That circled freshly in their forest dress eo 

Made them to boys again. Happier that they 
Slipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind, 
At the first mounting of the giant stairs. 
No placard on these rocks warned to the polls. 
No door-bell heralded a visitor, 65 

No courier waits, no letter came or went. 
Nothing was ploughed, or reaped, or bought, or sold ; 
The frost might glitter, it would blight no crop, 
The falling rain will spoil no holiday. 
We were made freemen of the forest laws, 70 

All dressed, like Nature, fit for her own ends, 
Essaying nothing she cannot perform. 

In Adirondac lakes, 
At morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded ; 
Shoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make 75 



THE ADIRONDACS. 421 

His brief toilette : at night, or in the rain, 

He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn : 

A paddle in the right hand, or an oar. 

And in the left, a gun, his needful arms. 

By turns we praised the stature of our guides, so 

Their rival strength and suppleness, their skill 

To row, to swim, to shoot, to build a camp. 

To climb a lofty stem, clean without boughs 

Full fifty feet, and bring the eaglet down : 

Temper to face wolf, bear, or catamount, ss 

And wit to trap or take him in his lair. 

Sound, ruddy men, frolic and innocent, 

In winter, lumberers ; in summer, guides ; 

Their sinewy arms pull at the oar untired 

Three times ten thousand strokes, from morn to eve. 90 

Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen ! 
No city airs or arts pass current here. 
Your rank is all reversed ; let men of cloth 
Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls : 
They are the doctors of the wilderness, 95 

And we the low-prized laymen. 
In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test 
Which few can put on with impunity. 
What make you, master, fumbling at the oar ? 
Will you catch crabs ? Truth tries pretension here. 100 
The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb ; 
The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks 
He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes. 
Tell the sun's time, determine the true north. 
Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods 105 
To thread by night the nearest way to camp ? 

Ask you, how went the hours ? 
All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, 



422 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay, 

Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer, no 

Or whipping its rough surface for a trout ; 

Or, bathers, diving from the rock at noon ; 

Challenging Echo by our guns and cries ; 

Or listening to the laughter of the loon ; 

Or, in the evening twilight's latest red, us 

Beholding the procession of the pines ; 

Or, later yet, beneath a lighted jack. 

In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter 

Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds 

Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist. 120 

Hark to that muffled roar ! a tree in the woods 

Is fallen : but hush ! it has not scared the buck 

Who stands astonished at the meteor light, 

Then turns to bound away, — is it too late ? 

Our heroes tried their rifles at a mark, 125 

Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five ; 
Sometimes their wits at sally and retort, 

114. Thoreau, in Walden^ has an admirable account of the 
loon and its habits. " His usual note was this demoniac laugh- 
ter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl ; but occasionally, 
when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long 
way off, he uttered a long drawn, unearthly howl, probably 
more like that of a wolf than any bird ; as when a beast puts 
his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls. This was his 
looning, — perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, 
making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he 
laughed in derision at my efforts, confident of his own re- 
sources." Page 254. 

116. One of Mr. Emerson's companions in this excursion, 
Stillman the artist, painted The Procession of the Pines, the as- 
pect, so familiar to the woodman, of a line of pines upon a hill- 
top outlined against the evening sky and seeming to be marching 
solemnly. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 423 

With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle ; 

Or parties scaled the near acclivities 

Competing seekers of a rumored lake, i3o 

Whose unauthenticated waves we named 

Lake Probability, — our carbuncle, 

Long sought, not found. 

Two Doctors in the camp 
Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain. 
Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew, 135 

Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth ; 
Insatiate skill in water or in air 
Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss ; 
The while, one leaden pot of alcohol 
Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds. 140 

Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants. 
Orchis and gentian, fern and long whip-scirpus. 
Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride, 
Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge, and moss. 
Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls. 145 

Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed, 
The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker 
Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp. 
As water poured through hollows of the hills 
To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets, 150 

So Nature shed all beauty lavishly 
From her redundant horn. 

Lords of this realm. 
Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day 
Rounded by hours where each outdid the last 
In miracles of pomp, we must be proud, 155 

As if associates of the sylvan gods. 
We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac, 

132. See Hawthorne's story of The Great Carbuncle. 



424 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

So pure the Alpine element we breathed, 

So light, so lofty pictures came and went. 

We trode on air, contemned the distant town, i6o 

Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned 

That we should build, hard-by, a spacious lodge, 

And how we should come hither with our sons. 

Hereafter, — willing they, and more adroit. 

Hard fare, hard bed, and comic misery, — les 

The midge, the blue-fly, and the mosquito 
Painted our necks, hands, ankles, with red bands : 
But, on the second day, we heed them not. 
Nay, we saluted them Auxiliaries, 
Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names. no 
For who defends our leafy tabernacle 
From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd, — 
Who but the midge, mosquito, and the fly. 
Which past endurance sting the tender cit, 
But which we learn to scatter with a smudge, 175 

Or baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn ? 

Our foaming ale we drank from hunters' pans. 
Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave 
Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread ; 
All ate like abbots, and, if any missed iso 

Their wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss 
With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth. 
And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore, 
Crusoe, Crusader, Pius ^^Eneas, said aloud, 
" Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating i85 

183. Stillman left his own record of this excursion in a prose 
paper, The Subjective of It, published in The Atlantic Monthly 
for December, 1858. In that paper he speaks of the procession 
of the pines. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 425 

Food indigestible : " — then murmured some, 
Others applauded him who spoke the truth. 

Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought 
Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday 
'Mid all the hints and glories of the home. i90 

For who can tell what sudden privacies 
Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry 
Of scholars f urloughed from their tasks, and let 
Into this Oreads' fended Paradise, 
As chapels in the city's thoroughfares, 195 

Whither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow, 
And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest. 
Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke 
To each apart, lifting her lovely shows 
To spiritual lessons pointed home, 200 

And as through dreams in watches of the night. 
So through all creatures in their form and ways 
Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant. 
Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense 
Inviting to new knowledge, one with old. 205 

Hark to that petulant chirp ! what ails the warbler ? 
Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye. 
Now soar again. What wilt thou, restless bird, 
Seeking in that chaste blue a bluer light, 
Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky ? 210 

And presently the sky is changed ; O world ! 
What pictures and what harmonies are thine ! 
The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, 
So like the soul of me, what if 't were me ? 
A melancholy better than all mirth. 215 

Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect, 
Or at the foresight of obscurer years ? 



426 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory, 

Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty 

Superior to all its gaudy skirts. 220 

And, that no day of life may lack romance, 

The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down 

A private beam into each several heart. 

Daily the bending skies solicit man, 

The seasons chariot him from this exile, 225 

The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair, 

The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, 

Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights 

Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home. 

With a vermilion pencil mark the day 230 

When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs 
Entering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls 
Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront 
Two of our mates returning with swift oars. 
One held a printed journal waving high 235 

Caught from a late-arriving traveller. 
Big with great news, and shouted the report 
For which the world had waited, now firm fact, 
Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea. 
And landed on our coast, and pulsating 240 

With ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries 
From boat to boat, and to the echoes round. 
Greet the glad miracle. Thought's new-found path 
Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways. 
Match God's equator with a zone of art, 245 

And lift man's public action to a height 

239. It will be remembered that it was in August, 1858, when 
the first Atlantic Cable was laid and the first message transmitted, 
proving the feasibility of the connection, though the cable was 
imperfect, and a second one became necessary. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 427 

Worthy the enormous cloud of witnesses, 

When linked hemispheres attest his deed. 

We have few moments in the longest life 

Of such delight and wonder as there grew, — 250 

Nor yet unsuited to that solitude : 

A burst of joy, as if we told the fact 

To ears intelligent ; as if gray rock 

And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know 

This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind ; 255 

As if we men were talking in a vein 

Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs, 

And a prime end of the most subtle element 

Were fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves ! 

Bend nearer, faint day-moon ! Yon thundertops, 260 

Let them hear well ! 't is theirs as much as ours. 

A spasm throbbing through the pedestals 
Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent, 
Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill 
To be a brain, or serve the brain of man. 265 

The lightning has run masterless too long ; 
He must to school, and learn his verb and noun. 
And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage. 
Spelling with guided tongue man's messages 
Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea. 270 

And yet I marked, even in the manly joy 
Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat, 
(Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent ; 
Or was it for mankind a generous shame, 
As of a luck not quite legitimate, 275 

Since fortune snatched from wit the lion's part ? 
Was it a college pique of town and gown, 
As one within whose memory it burned 
That not academicians, but some lout. 



428 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Found ten years since the Calif ornian gold ? 28o 

And now, again, a hungry company 

Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade, 

Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools 

Of science, not from the philosophers, 

Had won the brightest laurel of all time. 285 

'T was always thus, and will be ; hand and head 

Are ever rivals : but, though this be swift, 

The other slow, — this the Prometheus, 

And that the Jove, — yet, howsoever hid, 

It was from Jove the other stole his fire, 290 

And, without Jove, the good had never been. 

It is not Iroquois or cannibals, 

But ever the free race with front sublime, 

And these instructed by their wisest too. 

Who do the feat, and lift humanity. 295 

Let not him mourn who best entitled was, 

Nay, mourn not one : let him exult, 

Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant, 

And water it with wine, nor watch askance 

Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit : 300 

Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed. 

We flee away from cities, but we bring 
The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers. 
Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts. 
We praise the guide, we praise the forest life : 305 

But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore 
Of books and arts and trained experiment. 
Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz ? 
Oh no, not we ! Witness the shout that shook 
Wild Tupper Lake ; witness the mute all-hail 310 

The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge 
Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears 



THE ADIRONDACS. 429 

From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes 

On the piano, played with master's hand. 

' Well done ! ' he cries : ' the bear is kept at bay, 315 

The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire ; 

All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold. 

This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall, 

This wild plantation will suffice to chase. 

Now speed the gay celerities of art, 320 

What in the desert was impossible 

Within four walls is possible again, — 

Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill, 

Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife 

Of keen competing youths, joined or alone 325 

To outdo each other and extort applause. 

Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep. 

Twirl the old wheels ! Time takes fresh start again 

On for a thousand years of genius more.' 

The holidays were fruitful, but must end ; 330 

One August evening had a cooler breath ; 
Into each mind intruding duties crept ; 
Under the cinders burned the fires of home ; 
Nay, letters found us in our paradise : 
So in the gladness of the new event 335 

We struck our camp, and left the happy hills. 
The fortunate star that rose on us sank not ; 
The prodigal sunshine rested on the land. 
The rivers gambolled onward to the sea. 
And Nature, the inscrutable and mute, 340 

Permitted on her infinite repose 
Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons. 
As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed. 

343. The Sphinx in classical mythology was a monster having 
a human head, a lion's body, and sometimes fabled as winged. 



430 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



THE TITMOUSE. 

You shall not be overbold 

When you deal with arctic cold, 

As late I found my lukewarm blood 

Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. 

How should I fight ? my f oeman fine s 

Has million arms to one of mine : 

East, west, for aid I looked in vain, 

East, west, north, south, are his domain. 

Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home ; 

Must borrow his winds who there would come, lo 

Up and away for life ! be fleet ! — 

The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, 

Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, 

Curdles the blood to the marble bones, 

Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, is 

And hems in life with narrowing fence. 

Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep, — 

The punctual stars will vigil keep, — 

Embalmed by purifying cold ; 

The winds shall sing their dead-march old, 20 

The snow is no ignoble shroud, 

The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. 

It used to propose a question to the Thebans and murder all who 

could not guess it. The riddle was, — 

" What goes on four feet, on two feet, and three. 
But the more feet it goes on the weaker it be ? " 

CEdipus gave the answer that it was man, going on four feet as 

a child, and when old using a staff which made the third foot. 

But the Sphinx's riddle in the old poetry and in the serious 

modern acceptation is nothing less than the whole problem of 

human life. 



THE TITMOUSE. 431 

Softly, — but this way fate was pointing, 
'T was coming fast to such anointing, 
When piped a tiny voice hard by, 25 

Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, 
Chic-chic-a-dee-dee ! saucy note 
Out of sound heart and merry throat, 
As if it said, ' Good day, good sir ! 
Fine afternoon, old passenger ! 30 

Happy to meet you in these places, 
Where January brings few faces.' 

This poet, though he live apart, 
Moved by his hospitable heart. 
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, 35 

To do the honors of his court. 
As fits a feathered lord of land ; 
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand. 
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low. 
Prints his small impress on the snow, 40 

Shows feats of his gymnastic play, 
Head downward, clinging to the spray. 

Here was this atom in full breath, 
Hurling defiance at vast death ; 
This scrap of valor just for play 45 

Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, 
As if to shame my weak behavior ; 
I greeted loud my little saviour, 
* You pet ! what dost here ? and what for ? 
In these woods, thy small Labrador, so 

At this pinch, wee San Salvador ! 
What fire burns in that little chest 
So frolic, stout and self-possest ? 
Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine ; 



432 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Ashes and jet all hues outshine. 55 

Why are not diamonds black and gray, 

To ape thy dare-devil array ? 

And I affirm, the spacious North 

Exists to draw thy virtue forth. 

I think no virtue goes with size ; eo 

The reason of all cowardice 

Is, that men are overgrown, 

And, to be valiant, must come down 

To the titmouse dimension.' 

'T is good-will makes intelligence, 65 

And I began to catch the sense 
Of my bird's song : ' Live out of doors 
In the great woods, on prairie floors. 
I dine in the sun ; when he sinks in the sea, 
I too have a hole in a hollow tree ; 70 

And I like less when Summer beats 
With stifling beams on these retreats. 
Than noontide twilights which snow makes 
With tempest of the blinding flakes. 
For well the soul, if stout within, 75 

Can arm impregnably the skin ; 
And polar frost my frame defied, 
Made of the air that blows outside.' 

With glad remembrance of my debt, 
I homeward turn ; farewell, my pet ! so 

When here again thy pilgrim comes. 
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. 
Doubt not, so long as earth has bread. 
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed ; 

78. The titmouse's frame,made of the outer air to his fancy, — 
so light, free, and strong as it is, — can well defy polar frost. 



MONADNOC. 433 

The Providence that is most large ss 

Takes hearts like thine in special charge, 

Helps who for their own need are strong, 

And the sky dotes on cheerful song. 

Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant 

O'er all that mass and minster vaunt ; 9o 

For men mis-hear thy call in Spring, 

As 't would accost some frivolous wing, 

Crying out of the hazel copse, Plie-he ! 

And, in winter, CMc-a-dee-dee ! 

I think old Caesar must have heard 95 

In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, 

And, echoed in some frosty wold. 

Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. 

And I will write our annals new. 

And thank thee for a better clew, 100 

I, who dreamed not when I came here 

To find the antidote of fear, 

Now hear thee say in Roman key, 

Poean I Veni, vidi, vici. 



MONADNOC. 



Thousand minstrels woke within me, 
' Our music 's in the hills ; ' — 

Gayest pictures rose to win me, 
Leopard-colored rills. 

104. Plutarch, in his Life of Julius Ccesar, relates that, after 
Csesar's victory over Pharnaces at Zela in Asia Minor, " when 
he gave a friend of his at Rome an account of this action, to ex- 
press the promptness and rapidity of it, he used three words, I 
came, saw, and conquered, which in Latin having all the same 
cadence, carry with them a very suitable air of brevity." 



434 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

' Up ! — If thou knew'st who calls 5 

To twilight parks of beech and pine, 
High over the river intervals, 
Above the ploughman's highest line, 
Over the owner's farthest walls ! 
Up ! where the airy citadel 10 

O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell ! 
Let not unto the stones the Day 
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display. 
Read the celestial sign ! 

Lo ! the south answers to the north ; 15 

Bookworm, break this sloth urbane ; 
A greater spirit bids thee forth 
Than the gray dreams which thee detain. 
Mark how the climbing Oreads 
Beckon thee to their arcades ! 20 

Youth, for a moment free as they, 
Teach thy feet to feel the ground, 
Ere yet arrives the wintry day 
When Time thy feet has bound. 
Take the bounty of thy birth, 25 

Taste the lordship of the earth.' 

10. Any one who has stood upon the summit of Monadnoc, in 
Cheshire County, southern New Hampshire, would feel the sig- 
nificance not only of the surging landscape's swell, but of the airy 
citadel, since the crest of the mountain is a pinnacle of stone, 
built up almost like a fortress. 

12. That is, let not the insensate stones be the only recipients 
of the splendors which the light reveals. 

16. The use of urbane is a recall of the first meaning of the 
word, which is more distinct in urban. As a city (urbs) gives 
politeness, urbanity, and the country (rus) gives rusticity, here 
the sloth urbane is the indolence as regards nature which clings 
to a person too confined within city limits of interest. 



MONADNOC. • 435 

I heard, and I obeyed, — 
Assured that he who made the claim, 
Well known, but loving not a name. 

Was not to be gainsaid. 30 

Ere yet the summoning voice was still, 

I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill. 

From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed 

Like ample banner flung abroad 

To all the dwellers in the plains 35 

Round about, a hundred miles, 

With salutation to the sea, and to the bordering isles. 

In his own loom's garment dressed. 

By his proper bounty blessed, 

Fast abides this constant giver, 40 

Pouring many a cheerful river ; 

To far eyes, an aerial isle 

Unploughed, which finer spirits pile, 

Which morn and crimson evening paint 

For bard, for lover, and for saint ; 45 

An eyemark and the country's core, 

Inspirer, prophet evermore ; 

Pillar which God aloft had set 

So that men might it not forget ; 

It should be their life's ornament, 50 

And mix itself with each event ; 

Gauge and calendar and dial, 

Weatherglass and chemic phial, 

29. Though we give it no name, the longing for the free coun- 
try and the mountain height is no stranger to men's hearts. 

33. See note to p. 167, 1. 952. 

43. The rocky summit is the base upon which masses of clouds 
are piled high. 



436 ' RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

Garden of berries, perch of birds, 
Pasture of pool-haunting herds, 55 

Graced by each change of sum untold, 
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold. 

The Titan heeds his sky-affairs, 
Rich rents and wide alliance shares ; 
Mysteries of color daily laid 60 

By morn and eve in light and shade ; 
And sweet varieties of chance, 
And the mystic seasons' dance ; 
And thief-like step of liberal hours 
Thawing snow-drift into flowers. 65 

Oh, wondrous craft of plant and stone 
By eldest science wrought and shown ! 
' Happy,' I said, ' whose home is here ! 
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer ! 
Boon Nature to his poorest shed 70 

Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.' 
Intent, I searched the region round. 
And in low hut the dweller found : 
Woe is me for my hope's downfall ! 
Is yonder squalid peasant all 75 

That this proud nursery could breed 
For God's vicegerency and stead ? 
Time out of mind, this forge of ores ; 
Quarry of spars in mountain pores ; 
Old cradle, hunting-ground, and bier so 

Of wolf and otter, bear and deer ; 
Well-built abode of many a race ; 
Tower of observance searching space ; 
Factory of river and of rain ; 
Link in the Alps' globe-girding chain ; 85 

70. Compare Milton's Nature boon, in Paradise Lost, iv. 242. 



MONADNOC. 437 

By million changes skilled to tell 

What in the Eternal standeth well, 

And what obedient Nature can ; — 

Is this colossal talisman 

Kindly to plant and blood and kind, 90 

But speechless to the master's mind ? 

I thought to find the patriots 

In whom the stock of freedom roots ; 

To myself I oft recount 

Tales of many a famous mount, — 95 

Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells, 

Bards, Koys, Scanderbegs, and Tells ; 

And think how Nature in these towers 

Uplifted shall condense her powers, 

And lifting man to the blue deep 100 

Where stars their perfect courses keep, 

Like wise preceptor, lure his eye 

To sound the science of the sky. 

And carry learning to its height 

Of untried power and sane delight : 105 

The Indian cheer, the frosty skies, 

Rear purer wits, inventive eyes, — 

Eyes that frame cities where none be, 

And hands that stablish what these see ; 

And by the moral of his place no 

Hint summits of heroic grace ; 

Man in these crags a fastness find 

To fight pollution of the mind ; 

In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong. 

Adhere like this foundation strong, iis 

96. The places of this line have their heroes in the next, bards 
in Wales, Rob Roy in Scotland, William Tell in Uri; Scanderbeg 
(Iskauder-beg, i. e., Alexander the Great) is the name given by 
the Turks to the Robin Hood of Epirus, George Castriota, 1414r- 
1467. 



438 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

The insanity of towns to stem 

With simpleness for stratagem. 

But if the brave old mould is broke, 

And end in churls the mountain folk 

In tavern cheer and tavern joke, 120 

Sink, O mountain, in the swamp ! 

Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lamp ! 

Perish like leaves, the highland breed 

No sire survive, no son succeed ! 

Soft ! let not the offended muse 125 

Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse. 

Many hamlets sought I then, 

Many farms of mountain men. 

Rallying round a parish steeple 

Nestle warm the highland people, iso 

Coarse and boisterous, yet mild. 

Strong as giant, slow as child. 

Sweat and season are their arts, 

Their talismans are ploughs and carts ; 

And well the youngest can command 135 

Honey from the frozen land ; 

With clover heads the swamp adorn, 

Change the running sand to corn ; 

For wolf and fox bring lowing herds, 

And for cold mosses, cream and curds ; uo 

Weave wood to canisters and mats ; 

Drain sweet maple juice in vats. 

No bird is safe that cuts the air 

From their rifle or their snare ; 

No fish, in river or in lake, ms 

But their long hands it thence will take ; 

Whilst the country's flinty face, 

Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, 



MONADNOC. 439 

To fill tlie hollows, sink the hills, 

Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills, i5o 

And fit the bleak and howling waste 

For homes of virtue, sense, and taste. 

The World-soul knows his own affair, 

Forelooking, when he would prepare 

For the next ages, men of mould 155 

Well embodied, well ensouled. 

He cools the present's fiery glow. 

Sets the life-pulse strong but slow : 

Bitter winds and fasts austere 

His quarantines and grottoes, where leo 

He slowly cures decrepit flesh. 

And brings it infantile and fresh. 

Toil and tempest are the toys 

And games to breathe his stalwart boys : 

They bide their time, and well can prove, i65 

If need were, their line from Jove ; 

Of the same stuff, and so allayed. 

As that whereof the sun is made, 

And of the fibre, quick and strong. 

Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song. no 

Now in sordid weeds they sleep, 

In dulness now their secret keep ; 

Yet, will you learn our ancient speech, 

These the masters who can teach. 

Fourscore or a hundred words ns 

All their vocal muse affords ; 

153. See Emerson's poem, The World-Soul. 

175. " The vocabulary of a rich and long-cultivated language 
like the^ English may be roughly estimated at about one hundred 
thousand words (although this excludes a great deal which, if 
* English ' were understood in its widest sense, would have to be 



440 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

But they turn them in a fashion 

Past clerks' or statesmen's art or passion. 

I can spare the college bell, 

And the learned lecture, well ; iso 

Spare the clergy and libraries, 

Institutes and dictionaries. 

For that hardy English root 

Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot. 

Rude poets of the tavern hearth, 185 

Squandering your unquoted mirth, 

Which keeps the ground, and never soars, 

While Jake retorts and Reuben roars ; 

Scoff of yeoman strong and stark 

Goes like bullet to its mark ; 190 

While the solid curse and jeer 

Never balk the waiting ear. 

On the summit as I stood. 

O'er the floor of plain and flood 

Seemed to me, the towering hill 195 

Was not altogether still, 

But a quiet sense conveyed : 

If I err not, thus it said : — 

' Many feet in summer seek. 

Oft, my far-appearing peak ; 200 

In the dreaded winter time. 
None save dappling shadows climb, 

counted in) ; but thirty thousand is a very large estimate for the 
number ever used, in writing or speaking, by a well-educated 
man ; three to Ave thousand, it has been carefully estimated, 
cover the ordinary need of cultivated intercourse ; and the num- 
ber acquired by persons of lowest training and narrowest infor- 
mation is considerably less than this." The Life and Growth of 
Language, by W. D. Whitney, p. 26. 



MONADNOC. 441 

Under clouds, my lonely head, 

Old as the sun, old almost as the shade ; 

And comest thou 205 

To see strange forests and new snow, 

And tread uplifted land ? 

And leavest thou thy lowland race, 

Here amid clouds to stand ? 

And wouldst be my companion, 210 

Where I gaze, and still shall gaze, 

Through tempering nights and flashing days. 

When forests fall, and man is gone, 

Over tribes and over times. 

At the burning Lyre, 215 

Nearing me. 

With its stars of northern fire. 

In many a thousand years ? 

' Gentle pilgrim, if thou know 
The gamut old of Pan, 220 

And how the hills began. 
The frank blessings of the hill 
Fall on thee, as fall they will. 

' Let him heed who can and will ; 

Enchantment fixed me here 225 

To stand the hurts of time, until 

In mightier chant I disappear. 
If thou trowest 

How the chemic eddies play, 

Pole to pole, and what they say ; 230 

And that these gray crags 

Not on crags are hung, 
: But beads are of a rosary 

On prayer and music strung ; 



442 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

And, credulous, through the granite seeming, 235 

Seest the smile of Reason beaming ; — 

Can thy style-discerning eye 

The hidden-working Builder spy, 

Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din, 

With hammer soft as snowflake's flight ; — 240 

Knowest thou this ? 

O pilgrim, wandering not amiss ! ^ 

Already my rocks lie light, ^ 

And soon my cone will spin. 

' For the world was built in order, 245 

And the atoms march in tune ; 
Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, 
The sun obeys them, and the moon. 
Orb and atom forth they prance. 
When they hear from far the rune ; 250 

None so backward in the troop. 
When the music and the dance 
Reach his place and circumstance. 
But knows the sun-creating sound. 
And, though a pyramid, will bound. 255 

' Monadnoc is a mountain strong, 
Tall and good my kind among ; 
But well I know, no mountain can, 
Zion or Meru, measure with man. 
For it is on zodiacs writ, 260 

Adamant is soft to wit ; 

259. Meru is a fabulous mountain in the centre of the world, 
eighty thousand leagues high, the abode of Vishnu, and a per- 
fect paradise. It may be termed the Hindu Olympus. These 
lines are in the spirit of the German philosopher Hegel's dictum, 
that one thought of man outweighed all nature. 



MONADNOC. 443 

And when the greater comes again 

With my secret in his brain, 

I shall pass, as glides my shadow 

Daily over hill and meadow. 265 

' Through all time, in light, in gloom 
Well I hear the approaching feet 
On the flinty pathway beat 
Of him that cometh, and shall come ; 
Of him who shall as lightly bear 270 

My daily load of woods and streams, 
As doth this round sky-cleaving boat 
Which never strains its rocky beams ; 
Whose timbers, as they silent float, 
Alps and Caucasus uprear, 275 

And the long Alleghanies here, 
And all town-sprinkled lands that be, 
Sailing through stars with all their history. 

' Every morn I lift my head. 
See New England under spread, 280 

South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound, 
From Katskill east to the sea-bound. 
Anchored fast for many an age, 
I await the bard and sage. 

Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed, 235 
Shall string Monadnoc like a bead. 
Comes that cheerful troubadour. 
This mound shall throb his face before. 
As when, with inward fires and pain, 

272. In this bold figure the earth, with its mountains and 
town-sprinkled lands, is made the image of the lofty mind which 
dwells among the higher thoughts, and carries the mountain in 
its hands as a very little thing. 



444 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

It rose a bubble from the plain. 290 

When he cometh, I shall shed, 

From this wellspring in my head, 

Fountain-drop of spicier worth 

Than all vintage of the earth. 

There 's fruit upon my barren soil 295 

Costlier far than wine or oil. 

There 's a berry blue and gold, — 

Autumn-ripe, its juices hold 

Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart, 

Asia's rancor, Athens' art, 300 

Slowsure Britain's secular might. 

And the German's inward sight. 

I will give my son to eat 

Best of Pan's immortal meat. 

Bread to eat, and juice to drain ; 305 

So the coinage of his brain 

Shall not be forms of stars, but stars. 

Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars. 

He comes, but not of that race bred 

Who daily climb my specular head. 310 

Oft as morning wreathes my scarf. 

Fled the last plumule of the Dark, 

Pants up hither the spruce clerk 

From South Cove and City Wharf. 

I take him up my rugged sides, 315 

Half -repentant, scant of breath, — 

Bead-eyes my granite chaos show. 

And my midsummer snow : 

311. The scarf is the vesture of the mountain, and the light 
of the morning, revealing it, may be said to wind it about the 
mountain ; or it may be the wreathing vapor. 

317. I show the little clerk with his bead-eyes my granite 
chaos and the glittering quartz which is my midsummer snow. 



MONADNOC. 446 

Open the daunting map beneath, — 

All his county, sea and land, 320 

Dwarfed to measure of his hand ; 

His day's ride is a furlong space, 

His city-tops a glimmering haze. 

I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding ; 

*' See there the grim gray rounding 325 

Of the bullet of the earth 

Whereon ye sail, 

Tumbling steep 

In the uncontinented deep." 

He looks on that, and he turns pale. 330 

'T is even so, this treacherous kite, 

Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere, 

Thoughtless of its anxious freight. 

Plunges eyeless on forever ; 

And he, poor parasite, 335 

Cooped in a ship he cannot steer, — 

Who is the captain he knows not, 

Port or pilot trows not, — 

Kisk or ruin he must share. 

I scowl on him with my cloud, 340 

With my north wind chill his blood ; 

I lame him, clattering down the rocks ; 

And to live he is in fear. 

Then, at last, I let him down 

Once more into his dapper town, 345 

325. The small-souled man whom the mountain is jeering is 
bidden scan the horizon and see the immensity of the universe 
in which his little earth is rolling. The petty soul trembles be- 
fore this vastness as the looked for mighty one was to compre- 
hend and weigh it all in his balances. The contrast is between 
the blind animal-man, overpowered by nature, and the god-like 
soul-man, serenely ruling nature. 



446 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

To chatter, frightened, to his clan 
And forget me if he can.' 

As in the old poetic fame 

The gods are blind and lame, 

And the simular despite sso 

Betrays the more abounding might, 

So call not waste that barren cone 

Above the floral zone, 

Where forests starve : 

It is pure use ; — 355 

What sheaves like those which here we glean and 

bind 
Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse ? 

Ages are thy days, 

Thou grand affirmer of the present tense, 

And type of permanence ! seo 

Firm ensign of the fatal Being, 

Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief, 

That will not bide the seeing ! 

Hither we bring 

Our insect miseries to thy rocks ; 365 

And the whole flight, with folded wing. 

Vanish, and end their murmuring, — 

Vanish beside these dedicated blocks, 

Which who can tell what mason laid ? 

Spoils of a front none need restore, 370 

348. Fame, common story. 

370. In remote allusion to the removal to England of the Elgin 
marbles from the Parthenon at Athens ; there was much discus- 
sion as to the right of England to these spoils, which were granted 



MONADNOC. 447 

Replacing frieze and architrave ; — 

Where flowers eacli stone rosette and metope brave ; 

Still is the haughty pile erect 

Of the old building Intellect. 

Complement of human kind, 375 

Holding us at vantage still, 

Our sumptuous indigence, 

O barren mound, thy plenties fill ! 

We fool and prate ; 

Thou art silent and sedate. 330 

To myriad kinds and times one sense 

The constant mountain doth dispense ; 

Shedding on all its snows and leaves, 

One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. 

Thou seest, O watchman tall, 385 

Our towns and races grow and fall. 

And imagest the stable good 

For which we all our lifetime grope, 

In shifting form the formless mind. 

And though the substance us elude, 390 

We in thee the shadow find. 

Thou, in our astronomy 

An opaker star. 

Seen haply from afar. 

Above the horizon's hoop, 395 

A moment, by the railway troop, 

As o'er some bolder height they speed, — 

by the Turkish government, and a murmur in Greece after inde- 
pendence was obtained, that they should be restored. 

390. The mountain is but the image of the stable good : that 
good is the invisible substance, of which the mountain is the visi- 
ble shadow. The good is ever shifting to us, but the type of good 
is fixed. 



448 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

By circumspect ambition, 

By errant gain, 

By f easters and the frivolous, — 400 

Recallest us. 

And makest sane. 

Mute orator ! well skilled to plead, 

And send conviction without phrase. 

Thou dost succor and remede 405 

The shortness of our days, 

And promise, on thy Founder's truth, 

Long morrow to this mortal youth. 

398. Circumspect ambition, errant (i. e., travelling)^ gain, feast- 
ers, 3ind frivolous, — these are all part of the railway troop. 



APPENDIX. 



[Lowell's poem on Agassiz presents many aspects of 
that remarkable man. The stimulus which he gave in this 
country to scientific research was followed by results in 
other departments of human learning, for the method em- 
ployed in scientific study finds an application in history and 
literature also. In the study of literature the first lesson is 
in the power of seeing what lies before the student on the 
printed page, and the following sketch, which was published 
shortly after Agassiz's death, is given here, both because it 
is so entertaining an account of a student's experience, and 
because it points so clearly to the secret of all success in 
study, both of science and of literature.] 



IN THE LABORATORY WITH AGASSIZ. 

BY A FORMER PUPIL. 

It was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laboratory 
of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in 
the scientific school as a student of natural history. He asked 
me a few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents 
generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the 
knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study 
any special branch. To the latter I replied that while I wished 
to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I purposed to 
devote myself specially to insects. 

" When do you wish to begin ? " he asked. 

" Now," I replied. 

This seemed to please him, and with an energetic " Very 



450 APPENDIX. 

well," he reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow 
alcohol. 

"Take this Jish,^^ said he, " and look at it ; we call it a Hse- 
mulon ; by and by I will ask what you have seen." 

With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit 
instructions as to the care of the object intrusted to me. 

*' No man is fit to be a naturalist," said he, " who does not 
know how to take care of specimens." 

I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally 
moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking 
care to replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days 
of ground glass stoppers, and elegantly shaped exhibition jars ; 
all the old students will recall the huge, neckless glass bottles 
with their leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects and 
begrimed with cellar dust. Entomology was a cleaner science 
than ichthyology, but the example of the professor who had un- 
hesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar to produce the fish 
was infectious ; and though this alcohol had " a very ancient 
and fish-like smell," I really dared not show any aversion within 
these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it were 
pure water. Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of disap- 
pointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ar- 
dent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed, when 
they discovered that no amount of eau de cologne would drown 
the perfume which haunted me like a shadow. 

In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, 
and started in search of the professor, who had, however, left the 
museum ; and when I returned, after lingering over some of the 
odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry 
all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to recuscitate the 
beast from a fainting-fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of 
the normal, sloppy appearance. This little excitement over, 
nothing was to be done but return to a steadfast gaze at my 
mute companion. Half an hour passed, — an hour, — another 
hour ; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and 
around ; looked it in the face, — ghastly ; from behind, beneath, 
above, sideways, at a three quarters' view, — just as ghastly. 
I was in despair ; at an early hour I concluded that lunch was 
necessary ; so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully re- 
placed in the jar, and for an hour I was free. 

On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at 



APPENDIX. 451 

the museum, but had gone and would not return for several 
hours. My fellow-students were too busy to be disturbed by 
continued conversation. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, 
and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might 
not use a magnifying glass ; instruments of all kinds were in- 
terdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish ; it seemed 
a most limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel 
how sharp the teeth were. I began to count the scales in the 
different rows until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At 
last a happy thought struck me — I would draw the fish ; and 
now with surprise I began to discover new features in the crea- 
ture. Just then the professor returned. 

" That is right," said he ; "a pencil is one of the best of eyes. 
I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet and 
your bottle corked." 

With these encouraging words, he added, — 

« Well, what is it like ? " 

He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure 
of parts whose names were still unknown to me : the fringed 
gill-arches and movable operculum ; the pores of the head, 
fleshy lips, and lidless eyes ; the lateral line, the spinous fins, 
and forked tail ; the compressed and arched body. When I had 
finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air 
of disappointment, — 

" You have not looked very carefully ; why," he continued, 
more earnestly, " you have n't even seen one of the most con- 
spicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your 
eyes as the fish itself ; look again, look again ! " and he left me 
to my misery. 

I was piqued ; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched 
fish ! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discov- 
ered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the pro- 
fessor's criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly and 
when, toward its close, the professor inquired, — 

" Do you see it yet ? " 

" No," I replied, " I am certain I do not, but I see how little 
I saw before." 

" That is next best," said he, earnestly, " but I won't hear you 
now ; put away your fish and go home ; perhaps you will be 
ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you 
before you look at the fish." 



452 APPENDIX. 

This was disconcerting ; not only must I think of my fish all 
night, studying, without the object before me, what this unknown 
but most visible feature might be, but also, without reviewing 
my new discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the 
next day. I had a bad memory ; so I walked home by Charles 
River in a distracted state, with my two perplexities. 

The cordial greeting from the professor the next morning was 
reassuring ; here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious 
as I, that I should see for myself what he saw. 

" Do you perhaps mean," I asked, " that the fish has symmet- 
rical sides with paired organs ? " 

His thoroughly pleased, " Of course, of course ! " repaid the 
wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed 
most happily and enthusiastically — as he always did — upon 
the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do 
next. 

" Oh, look at your fish ! " he said, and left me again to my 
own devices. In a little more than an hour he returned and 
heard my new catalogue. 

" That is good, that is good ! " he repeated ; " but that is not 
all ; go on ; " and so for three long days he placed that fish be- 
fore my eyes, forbidding me to look at anything else, or to use 
any artificial aid. " Look, look, look," was his repeated injunc- 
tion. 

This was the best entomological lesson I ever had, — a lesson 
whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent 
study ; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he left it to 
many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with 
which we cannot part. 

A year afterwards, some of us were amusing ourselves with 
chalking outlandish beasts upon the museum blackboard. We 
drew prancing star-fishes ; frogs in mortal combat ; hydra-headed 
worms ; stately crawfishes, standing on their tails, bearing aloft 
umbrellas ; and grotesque fishes with gaping mouths and staring 
eyes. The professor came in shortly after, and was as amused 
as any at our experiments. He looked at the fishes. 

" Hsemulons, every one of them," he said ; " Mr. drew 

them." 

True ; and to this day, if I attempt a fish, I can draw nothing 
but Hsemulons. 

The fourth day, a second fish of the same group was placed 



APPENDIX. 453 

beside the first, and I was bidden to point out the resemblances 
and differences between the two ; another and another followed, 
until the entire family lay before me, and a whole legion of jars 
covered the table and surrounding shelves ; the odor had be- 
come a pleasant perfume : and even now, the sight of an old, 
six-inch, worm-eaten cork brings fragrant memories ! 

The whole group of Hsemulons was thus brought in review : 
and, whether engaged upon the dissection of the internal organs, 
the preparation and examination of the bony frame-work, or the 
description of the various parts, Agassiz's training in the method 
of observing facts and their orderly arrangement was ever ac- 
companied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with 
them. 

" Facts are stupid things," he would say, "until brought into 
connection with some general law." 

At the end of eight months, it was almost with reluctance 
that I left these friends and turned to insects ; but what I had 
gained by this outside experience has been of greater value than 
years of later investigation in my favorite groups. 



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